


What Witchers Are Capable of Feeling

by hobbitdragon



Series: WWACOF Series and Extras [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Geralt has a lot of feelings about being an ally to other outcasts and nonhumans, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, dad feels, endgame ships are Geralt/Eskel and Geralt/Regis, main ships are Geralt/Triss and Geralt/Yennefer and Geralt/Eskel and Geralt/Regis, plus a bonus ship that is revealed in later chapters of the story, relationships are hard, takes place during Witcher 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:37:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 66
Words: 130,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: Geralt flirts and fucks his way across the continent, falls in and out of love, works on his relationships, and then finally gets a happy ending. If you want a fic about Geralt being a messy bisexual polyamorous sub and then settling down, this is the fic for you.
Relationships: Dettlaff van der Eretein/Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt of Rivia/Zoltan Chivay, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Lambert, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Letho z Gulety | Letho of Gulet, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Triss Merigold, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt/various female NPCs, Geralt/various male NPCs
Series: WWACOF Series and Extras [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640068
Comments: 1081
Kudos: 667





	1. Mislav

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't played Witcher 1 or 2 and I haven't read the books. I did a little research on the wiki when there were details I wanted to include or avoid, but that was it. I have also seen the first 8 episodes of the Witcher TV series on Netflix, and while that influences my writing, this is still my interpretation of the characters' game-verse selves. So this is going to be a hodgepodge of missing or incorrect information about canon. Sorry to the purists out there!
> 
> EDIT:  
I can't believe I have to say this, but I have gotten more shitty commenters on this fic than on anything else I have ever written in more than a decade of being in fandom. So:
> 
> I believe that the Witcher games are deeply flawed and problematic, containing a great deal of racism and sexism. It is an actively racist/white supremacist creative choice to create a fantasy setting that has solely white people in it, and CDProjektRed did that for nearly all of the games. They then released the Hearts of Stone DLC, which contains PoC which are nearly all killable, and the ones who aren't killable are racist stereotypes/caricatures. That is another racist choice. In addition, the games are heavily constructed to cater to cishet male players in ways that are often homophobic, sexist, and outright misogynist. One of the best things that the Witcher TV show did was to create a version of the Witcher universe that isn't a white supremacist misogynist wonderland. 
> 
> With that said, I have amassed hundreds of hours spent playing Witcher 3 and I wrote this MASSIVE fic about it, so obviously there was something I enjoyed there. I fully espouse the idea that we can love and enjoy deeply flawed, problematic media - and that Witcher 3 is one such piece of media. 
> 
> If you disagree, if you somehow believe that the Witcher games aren't sexist and racist, and you take it personally that I'm criticizing your favored piece of media: THIS FIC ISN'T FOR YOU. Do not comment on my fic! I'm not at all interested in your viewpoint or thoughts and they will be summarily deleted!

Geralt had heard sad stories like Mislav’s before. Hell, Geralt had  _ been _ a sad story like Mislav’s before, more than once. There had been one lovely young man Geralt had been forced to escort to a new village after he’d been caught with Geralt. Geralt hadn’t had much coin to spare him to set up up anew, but thankfully the man had been a blacksmith. He’d found himself a new apprenticeship quickly enough, and the next time Geralt had stopped in the town, the man had been just fine, if much more discreet. 

After Geralt found the dead griffin in its nest, he plucked some of its huge feathers and bundled them up to return to the little building in the woods. The feathers would make fine fletching for Mislav’s arrows. 

Mislav came to the door of his cottage looking all startled. Clearly he had never expected to see Geralt again. He seemed even more stunned by the bundle of brown and white pinions. But he took the gift, and even if he sounded confused as he offered, Mislav invited Geralt in for dinner. 

When Geralt came in, Mislav sat himself down by the fireplace. “I, uh, only have one set of dishware, one fork, one spoon, so I hope you have your own. People don’t visit me so there’s never been a purpose to having more.”

Since Geralt did have his own, this was no problem. Mislav already had a bird roasting, and it turned out to be seasoned beautifully once it finished cooking. They ate in companionable quiet, Mislav looking more and more pensive, until finally Geralt broke the silence. 

“Witchers come through this way sometimes,” he said, trying to ease into what he wanted to say. Mislav had an established life out here, all alone in the woods, taking care of the people who hated him by hunting the beasts who might cause them harm. It seemed to have been a long time since the events of his sad story but he had not moved on. “We’re always looking for a friendly stop on the road with company who won’t spit on us. If you’d ever like visitors and are prepared to tolerate swords in your house, I could mention you to other Witchers.”

Mislav looked at him, the deep lines around his eyes scrunching up. 

“I don’t need pity,” he said at last.

“Good thing I’m not offering it, then,” Geralt replied. “People think you’re a freak here because they’ve heard something about you. People think  _ we’re _ freaks everywhere we go.” Geralt shifted where he sat against the wall. Mislav had no chairs, only his bed and the floor, which was where Geralt sat near the fire. “Many of us sleep with men too. When you’re already getting spit on and chased out of towns, why not?”

At this Mislav’s eyes went wide, glittering in the firelight. “Truly? Tell me this isn’t a jest.”

Geralt smiled. “No jest. Our training takes many years, which means many years of just boys and men alone together. Among Witchers, it is considered stranger  _ not _ to suck off your friends.”

That got a laugh out of the other man, which changed the hangdog look of his face into something almost handsome. 

“Well don’t that sound nice,” he chuckled, looking at Geralt with a great deal more consideration. “But what about love? Are you Witchers even capable of that?”

Geralt thought about himself. He thought about Yennefer, and Dandelion, and Regis, and Eskel, and all the others through the long decades. 

“I cannot speak for all of us. I am, at least.” He looked at Mislav. “But we do not settle down. What a Witcher can give is a night, perhaps two, maybe a week at a stretch if you and the Witcher are both lucky--unless you are willing to pick up and travel yourself. And given that you stayed here even after being cast out, I guess that is not your way.”

Mislav shook his head, giving Geralt a long, quiet look. 

“I do not think I would like to fuck a man I didn’t know well,” Mislav said, after giving it some thought. “But it might be nice to play at closeness for a while, just to remember what it’s like.”

As full night fell and the fire burned into glowing coals, and the darkness grew so deep that even Geralt would have struggled to make his way through the woods, they kissed slow and sweet in Mislav’s bed. And when Mislav stopped it, saying that he wished to go no further, they shared the blankets together, warm and close. They awoke tangled up together at dawn.

With a kiss goodbye, Geralt left feeling a little lighter in his boots, knowing that there was one more place for a weary Witcher to seek shelter and comfort. 


	2. Yennefer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the games are racist as hell, I'm obviously going to be using the versions of these characters from the show instead. While the show is also flawed in its own ways, I enjoyed the casting choices a great deal.

Afterward Geralt would wonder what it might have been like for someone who wasn’t a Witcher. Someone with both lesser senses and unblunted feelings. Would another man have been brought to tears? Flushed with feeling? Developed shaky hands?

Because for Geralt, seeing Yennefer again in the little inn-yard in White Orchard, it was not unlike being kicked in the chest, and he’d been kicked in the chest often enough to know. 

A low breeze carried her scent to him, both the heady craftsmanship of her perfume and the more subtle, more beloved smell of her skin, her hair. She filled his skull, winding into his throat and lungs. And the sight of her ached, startling after years as a memory, a dull throb that started below his breastbone and emanated down his collarbones all the way to his wrists. His thoughts went quiet, watchful like when he was in the presence of a dangerous creature. 

He almost forgot it for a while, being chased by the Wild Hunt. And then they arrived in Vizima and she left Geralt behind in the stables without another word, and as always it was like a fishing hook had caught somewhere inside him and was pulling, pulling, pulling. A continuous painful tug he’d almost managed to rip out after all those years apart. 

As the Nilfgaardians primped him, washing and perfuming and shaving him fit to match her, Geralt thought about Yennefer. She liked him shaved, the fresh smooth skin of his throat against her palm. She liked the clean press of their mouths together, unmasked by mustache or beard. But she liked his facial hair too, pulling on it jokingly because she liked giving him little hurts and knew he liked receiving them. She liked the soft brush of it as he kissed her shoulders when holding her. 

She liked him freshly washed, legs spread for her to do whatever she wanted. 

Geralt got through the imperial audience. He didn’t bow, because of course he didn’t, he wasn’t one of Emhyr’s subjects who owed him any deference. And Geralt still remembered him as Duny, the twitch of his snout as he breathed and the light glittering on his quills. Geralt had liked Duny, protected and helped him when he had been an innocent man beset by attackers, but Geralt wouldn’t bow before a conquering emperor. 

At least Emhyr was nice to look at. He had aged like a fine wine, the white around his temples as pleasing as the broad spread of his shoulders in his quilted tunic. Geralt focused on that rather than the insulting way Emhyr talked to Geralt about Ciri--about their daughter. Emhyr’s, Geralt’s, and Yen’s. 

And afterward--Yennefer’s simultaneous flirtation and her sharp refusal of Geralt’s explanation for his time with Triss, the mirrored anger and desire that pulled inside Geralt’s own breast while he watched it play across her face--it felt the same as always. 

When she left, Geralt felt the same shame as always too, the same guilt, the same confusion. What had he _ done _ to them? Were Yennefer’s fears the truth, and none of this was real? He’d been so desperate to feel something--he’d desired others, of course he had, felt loyalty and lust and affection. But he’d seen _her,_ looking like something out of a dream, brown skin and red lips and purple eyes, and wanted what Duny had had with Pavetta: the passion, the desperation, the _fairy tale._ Geralt had wanted to be destined for something other than violence and death. 

Not that it had turned out well for Pavetta. Duny had lied to her about who he was and she'd died for his deceit. Just like Geralt had lied to Yennefer, or at least concealed the truth. 

The thoughts that followed after Yennefer's departure were as familiar as the woman herself. If nothing else, Geralt told himself for the meager comfort it gave, he and Yen would always be Ciri’s parents--Geralt had been truly destined for that, at least, and that was more than most Witchers got. 

The train of thought was so well-worn, like the battered clothes Emhyr's chamberlain scorned. Geralt reminded himself that Yennefer was not the only person Geralt had ever loved--there had been Regis, steady and warm, and Dandelion, scattered and bright, and there had always, always been Eskel. Eskel, Geralt’s wandering home. 

Great loves in their own way, but not like the fairy tales. That had always been Yen.

Geralt still wanted it to be Yen. 


	3. Letho of Gulet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Both parties in this chapter have been drinking before the sex, but I've written this so that it doesn't impair their judgment or compromise their consent. Still, I know the combination of alcohol and sex is a sensitive topic for some.

When Geralt rode up to the Reardon manor, he expected monsters. When he saw the traps, he expected humans. Geralt did not expect to find another Witcher instead, and even less did he expect Letho of Gulet. 

Geralt hadn’t ever wanted to see the man again but here they both were. Geralt braced himself, hand on his blade, until Letho waved a hand at him. 

“You saved my life, so I helped you and yours and got into a heap of trouble for it. Then I got you into a heap of trouble and spared your life, so I figure we’re even. If I didn’t kill you then, I have no reason to kill you now.”

This being good sense, Geralt took his hand off his sword. 

The story Letho then told about being betrayed by Emhyr didn’t surprise Geralt at all. Geralt had seen what Emhyr did in the places he conquered: he raised taxes, yes, but he built roads and libraries and universities, too. Emhyr didn’t want to rebuild a school for Witchers, he wanted a world where Witchers weren’t necessary. And more to the point, Emhyr didn’t want walking talking proof that he had corrupted a famously neutral order of warriors for his own political gain. Further, Emhyr doubtless thought that if a Witcher like Letho could be swayed to politics once, he could be swayed again, this time against Emhyr himself.

Geralt didn’t like Letho’s involvement in politics. There was a reason Witchers were supposed to be neutral: they were an unfair advantage to any side they joined. Trained in stealth, with keen senses, exceptional weapons and armor, and inhuman speed and strength, a single Witcher with luck on his side could sway the tide of politics. And Letho had. 

But then, Geralt had gone and adopted a princess, hiding and raising Ciri as his own. And now Geralt had been hired to find said princess by Emperor Emhyr himself, her father by blood, for reasons of state. So it wasn’t as if Geralt could judge Letho. While Geralt hadn’t turned kingslayer as Letho had, Geralt wasn’t upholding his commitment to political neutrality very well either. 

Geralt had planned to spend his afternoon killing monsters. As he had already dug his payment out of the old barn (he gave Letho a portion, figuring it was only fair, as Letho had been the one to actually kill the monsters), that meant they had time on their hands. So, with nowhere else to be and a very secure location, Geralt and Letho did what Witchers often did when they wound up together: they drank and fucked.

With a bottle of the Reardon Manor’s wine in his belly, Geralt felt warm and more than willing. Truth be told he would have been willing even without the wine. It wasn’t often Geralt met anyone this much bigger and broader than himself, and even rarer that such men were of an inclination to sate Geralt’s interest. Geralt had been interested when he’d first saved the massive Witcher two years ago. There just hadn't been time.

Geralt’s leather and chainmail breeches jingled as Geralt shoved them down while Letho unlaced his own trews with a smile. 

Turned out Letho’s cock matched the rest of him. It didn’t look big on his own frame, but when Letho knelt between Geralt’s legs and lined himself up with Geralt’s own prick, clearly showing off, Geralt realized exactly how much context mattered. Geralt had never had a reason to feel embarrassed about his own endowment, and he didn’t now either, but it was still an intimidating comparison. 

It also lay warm and heavy in the curve of Geralt’s hip. As Geralt turned over onto his belly, he grinned back at Letho, offering up the tin of thick salve every Witcher kept in their pack. Letho took it. 

Normally Geralt didn’t bother with fingering, trusting in his own muscle control to see him comfortably through. But there was no hurry and thus no need to deny himself. And with something Letho’s size, Geralt figured it was best. 

Letho started with a generous dollop of salve on Geralt’s tailbone, working it into him a finger at a time till Geralt felt dizzy with the pressure and the wine and the anticipation. When that was done, and Geralt had left a damp spot from panting into the bundle of Letho’s clothing that served as his pillow, it seemed to take no effort at all for Letho to flip Geralt onto his back again and fold his legs up to his chest. A wave of heat went through Geralt at that, and another as Letho finally seated himself, sinking in to the hilt with a low rumble of approval. His deep-set gold eyes narrowed in an expression of pure satisfaction. 

Geralt’s jaw dropped. He clutched at the edges of the bedroll. Extensive practice in staying quiet meant that Geralt didn’t howl as Letho began to move, but he did let out a shuddering breath that turned into a long silent O. 

The friction of the thick salve and the thicker cock made him prickle all over with sweat, toes curling in his boots. Every push drove deep, and the politely slow pace of Letho’s entry soon gave way to the kind of harsh, fast drubbing guaranteed to drive Geralt wild. 

He came the first time just from the sheer stretch and depth of it, tightening up and shaking apart before he could even warn Letho. At that Letho just laughed, shifting his grip on the backs of Geralt’s knees and going even harder, snapping his hips so their skin clapped in the silent estate. Geralt had just the presence of mind to wipe the mess of his spend onto the floorboards before his whole mind was occupied by being fucked so hard so soon after climax. 

The second time Geralt came was when Letho curled one big palm around Geralt’s thigh and the other around his cock, working him expertly in time with his thrusts. Geralt nearly bit through his own lip, clutching at his own boots, eyes squeezed shut as the feeling of it rippled up his spine, emptying his mind of everything beyond the awareness of what lay between his legs. 

When Letho came Geralt only knew because he was suddenly much wetter inside. He blinked up at the bigger man, hazy and overheated and breathless. Letho just smiled down at him again before giving Geralt’s bare hip an affectionate slap, pulling out, and turning Geralt onto his side. 

“Gimme a minute. I got at least one more in me. Bet you do too.”

Geralt was less sure, given the intensity of the first two, but he was willing to be convinced. A few minutes later, when Letho’s hypersensitivity had passed and he curled up behind Geralt and slid right back in, newly-slicked and just as big as ever, Geralt was even more willing.

This time Geralt worked himself, circling his thumb around and around the underside of his cock as Letho swept back and forth over his sweet spot like whetstone honing a blade. The first two climaxes had been harsh and driven, but this one was gradual, spreading like the glow of dawn along the horizon.

Afterward Geralt focused on just breathing. Letho hummed his approval into the space behind Geralt’s ear, face buried in silver hair until at last he ground to a halt deep inside Geralt. 

“Nothing like fucking another Witcher, is there,” Geralt rasped, voice rough even despite his silence. Decades of experience, inhuman stamina, and the total absence of horror at the number and extremity of scars made for a potent combination. 

Letho hummed out his agreement. 

Afterwards, once Geralt had cleaned himself up and was mostly sober and about to depart, the team of mercs showed up. And, well...there were so few Witchers left in the world, and Letho had been such a good lay. So Geralt jumped down out of the attic after Letho and fought beside him. 

Geralt followed Letho to the next group of mercs as well. They went down just as quickly, no match for even one Witcher, much less two.  After dispatching the second group and the man who’d sold Letho out to Emhyr, Geralt figured it would be silly to stop there, so he followed Letho to the third group. 

Which was where things went wrong. 

A single arrow to the meat of the shoulder shouldn’t have been enough to fell a Witcher. Not even a broadhead with a thick shaft like this one. But in the middle of fighting off the group of bounty hunters, Letho faltered, listed to the side, crashed into the wood fence, and then collapsed. 

Letho had told Geralt to wait, told him not to interfere no matter what, but Geralt wasn’t about to just stand here and watch a band of crusty low-lifes behead a fellow Witcher. So Geralt waded into the fray for the third time that day. 

After checking the corpses to make sure they were dead, Geralt knelt by Letho’s side. When he was close enough to check for a pulse (absent) Geralt was also close enough to smell the other man. There were all the scents Geralt would expect: musky sweat, oil and leather, steel and silver, semen and salve...and Zanguebarian venom, sharp enough to cut through all the other scents together. There was only one reason Geralt could think of for that smell would be present here and now. 

So, with great effort, he dragged Letho’s unbreathing form into the nearby house and propped him up against the bed. His limbs were as lax as a doll, heavy and soft against Geralt’s palms, all tension gone from the massive muscles. Nothing like the flex and bunch of them earlier that day as he'd labored over Geralt. 

Half an hour later a shiver went through Letho. He drew a deep wheezing breath. His eyelids fluttered. 

When he got an explanation out of the other Witcher, Geralt almost felt guilty for messing up Letho’s plan to fake his own death and escape Emhyr’s attentions that way. But mostly Geralt just felt irritable. It would only have taken a few moments for Letho to _explain_ the plan. Geralt would have played along!  But Geralt could not truly blame him. After being on the run from bounty hunters for more than half a year and already surviving one traitorous friend today alone, Letho's lack of trust was only common sense. 

So Geralt dug the antidote out of Letho’s saddlebags for him. He dosed Letho with it, holding the vial to the other man’s mouth when Letho’s hands were still too weak to grip it. And when Geralt told Letho to hide from Emhyr by joining the Wolf School Witchers in Kaer Morhen for the winter, well... 

There were so few Witchers left in the world and so many monsters. Geralt understood the terror of that. He understood being willing to do almost anything to keep from being the last Witcher alive--as Letho had done in accepting Emhyr’s offer. He understood the kinds of compromises and hard calls one had to make as a Witcher. And Geralt certainly understood wanting to kill Foltest. Some monsters wore human faces, and some monsters killed not with venom or fang but words and control. 

Geralt did not like what Letho had done, but he understood it. The other Wolf School Witchers would not like it either but they too would understand.

So Geralt helped Letho drape himself in a cloak. He helped Letho mount his horse. And Geralt sent him off to Kaer Morhen. 


	4. The Oxenfurt Armorer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation in this chapter is lifted straight from the game, with only very minor alterations to inflection. That the game devs thought this was a heterosexual conversation baffles me.

The search for the Baron’s family led Geralt to Oxenfurt. After Tamara rejected the Baron’s pathetic attempt at reconciliation in exactly the way that Geralt could have told the man to expect, Geralt made good on his otherwise wasted trip to the city by going to the armorer. 

He found a handsome shop, crammed with armor, swords, and shields immediately identifiable as belonging to the Redanian army. The equally handsome blacksmith, a man in his late forties judging by the lines on his face, sat along the side of the shop, clearly on a break from his work. He held a meat pie in one hand and a jug of mead in the other, but he set the jug down when the door opened. His eyes lit when they fell on Geralt. 

“Greetings! My, my--a witcher! Something tells me I finally get something interesting to do!” the blacksmith called, finishing his last bites of dinner and brushing off his hands on his leather apron. He looked Geralt up and down, eyes lingering as long on Geralt’s face as on his Witcher gear, the two blades and the chainmail and leather armor. 

Flicking his eyes to the packed shelves overflowing with shields, Geralt lifted one eyebrow. “Sure doesn’t look like you’re short on work.” 

The blacksmith scoffed. “Oh, this--a Redanian army order, but there’s no pleasure in’t—one after the other, same thing time and again. No finesse required!” His piercing brown eyes alit on Geralt’s face again, lingering on his mouth. 

“Looking to perfect your craft?” Geralt asked, leaning forward a little to rest his arms on the countertop, unsure if he was reading this right. This was Redania, and Radovid cared as little for buggery as he did for the elder folk. He’d as happily command his men to beat or ‘disappear’ men caught with other men as elves and dwarves. 

“Of course!” the blacksmith replied. He lifted his brows, holding his arms out to each side. “Crafting’s like ploughin' a…maid.” Geralt noted the pause. “Fall into a rut and sure, you’ll get the job done, but there’ll be no whoops, no hollers, no standing ovation. So, got any special requests for me, help me stay on form?” 

At this, the blacksmith gave Geralt a look of such open consideration that Geralt couldn’t help but glance back at the doorway, where a Redanian soldier stood just outside. 

“...Still talking about armor, are we?” Geralt asked, lowering his voice.

The blacksmith cast his own eye toward the door with a smile. “Aye, what else would it be?” 

So Geralt smiled back, internally re-planning his evening. “You’re in luck, I actually do have a special order for you,” he replied, all louche implication. 

“Ohh, that’s fantastic! Mark my words, you’ll be satisfied!”

Geralt was, too. The blacksmith had a very skilled mouth, strong hands, and a lovely cock, all three of which saw Geralt to a series of climaxes he wouldn’t soon forget. 

The fact that the man also made Geralt a very fine pair of reinforced boots was just an added bonus. 


	5. Keira Metz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't ship Geralt with Keira, so don't read this chapter expecting that's what you'll get.

Keira wanted to fuck Geralt. It didn’t take a Witcher’s sensitivities to divine what any man with any senses at all would have been able to tell. She was being spectacularly unsubtle. 

At another time in his life Geralt would have been delighted to oblige. But not now. With his longing for Yennefer still so fresh in his mind, and the way Triss had taken advantage of him still a raw wound not only between himself and Yennefer but within Geralt himself, Keira could not have been less appealing. Not that she took the hint. Her clothes grew more revealing every time Geralt saw her, until he could no longer look at her without being confronted by her bare nipples, revealed by her gaping neckline and the ways she moved.

Perhaps someday, he thought, the prospect of yet another Sorceress desiring him would inspire something other than anxiety and distrust. But right now that was all he felt. It didn’t help Keira any that her white-blond hair reminded him of Ciri.

Geralt still agreed to help Keira, of course, because it never paid to piss off a Sorceress. He’d done it often enough to know. And at least at first, with the cursed Tower on Fyke Isle, the work Keira asked him to do seemed relevant to his life on the Path anyway. Breaking curses and killing monsters were what he did. That was his purpose in life. His destiny. It was all he was good for, with Ciri gone somewhere and Yennefer so angry at him. 

When it turned out that Keira, too, just wanted to manipulate him, well. Geralt wished he could say he was surprised. But even when they didn’t lead him around by the balls, Sorceresses seemed able to lead him by the nose instead. 

Geralt hated that she manipulated him rather than just _ asking _ for help. He would have given it willingly had she asked directly. And all this, all she’d done--all just to save herself from a backwater life, living as the common folk did! He hated how upset she got about even _briefly_ having to live the kind of life he’d lived more days than not for most of seventy years. 

And he hated even more that he understood her. Aretuza had shaped Yennefer’s whole way of being, cut deep into her spirit in ways no amount of glamor could erase--the same as Kaer Morhen had done to Geralt. Becoming a Sorceress required sacrifices just as becoming a Witcher required sacrifices. They had both watched their peers die, watched their own bodies change, and left their humanity behind in doing so. But where Geralt had been _ told _ that the reward for his suffering was a life of labor and isolation, had been _ prepared _ and _ trained _ for that, the women of Aretuza had been promised comfort and power. Where Geralt had gone onto the Path _ knowing _ that his greatest reward for a life of service would be only the knowledge of his capacity to change the world for good, Keira and the others were living broken dreams. To be reassured that your suffering would end, to be promised that what you had been through would lead to something easier and better--Geralt understood why the Sorceresses were the ways that they so often were. 

And they were _ all _ of them, Sorceresses and Witchers alike, no longer human. Geralt spilled his blood in service to human lives, yes, but also Elves, dwarves, and others who were either never human or had left humanity behind as he had. Non-humans needed each other. Especially now that Radovid wanted to see them all burn. 

So Geralt sent Keira to Kaer Morhen. He protected his own even when they did not protect him.


	6. Lambert

Lambert had always been angry. He was angry at his father for first abusing him and then giving him away to the Witchers. He was angry at Vesemir and all the older Witchers for putting him and the other children through the Trials. He was angry at the children who died in the Trials and left him alive with the guilt, and angry at himself and the others for having survived. He was angry at Kaer Morhen for being where he’d lost his humanity, and angry at the fanatics that broke Kaer Morhen and kept it from doing to others what it had done to him. 

So when Geralt found Lambert angry at some foreman in Novigrad, Geralt wasn’t surprised. That Lambert killed the man outright was shocking--even as much of a hothead as he was, Lambert wasn't prone to murder--but while Lambert was often angry, he was rarely irrational in his actions. Geralt withheld judgment, waiting for the explanation.

When it turned out that the foreman had been involved in the murder of a Witcher, and one for whom Lambert seemed to have very great affection, Geralt immediately understood. No one in the world protected Witchers. They were meant to be impervious, unemotional, and alone. So in most cases there were only other Witchers to mourn them--or avenge them if they were murdered. 

And Lambert had always stood out among his fellow Wolf School Witchers. Compared to his peers in Kaer Morhen, Lambert had always been too angry, too affected, too wild. It had always been an open question whether something had gone wrong with Lambert’s formula during his Trial of the Grasses. But the Cat School Witchers, meanwhile, famously used a formula in their Trials which  _ caused _ emotional intensity rather than removing it. So the fact that Lambert had fallen for a Cat made perfect sense to Geralt. Only Witchers looked out for Witchers, and Lambert had finally met another Witcher who’d been like him--and then the man had been assassinated.

Another member of the team of assassins was nearby, so they looked into it together. This one they left alive, figuring that being a former Scoia'tael, now drunk and alone in the slums of Novigrad, was more than punishment enough. 

Afterward Geralt took Lambert to another inn, where they discussed what to do next to find the other assassins. And Geralt asked about the Witcher who’d died. 

Once Lambert got some alcohol in him, the whole story spilled out. Lambert and the other Witcher had both wound up both taking the same job, their employer had gotten himself killed by their quarry, they’d had to work together to get through, and they’d split the earnings. Witchers weren’t supposed to travel in pairs, but they had, and for quite some time by the sound of it.

Geralt had traveled with Eskel often enough to know what that meant. It meant you slept side by side, shared food, shared trouble, and shared what comfort you had to offer. Witchers weren’t supposed to get attached to each other but they _did_. 

“There’s nothing like being with another Witcher, is there,” Geralt said gently to Lambert, who was getting angry all over again just telling the story. And at that, Lambert crumpled, maudlin and miserable. Lambert retreated from the common room, too noisy and public for what Lambert was feeling, and into the room they’d rented together. Geralt followed him. 

As he climbed the stairs, Geralt wondered: was this what Geralt would have been like without the mutagens? The question always arose when he was around Lambert. Normal humans felt things so strongly that their emotions got in the way of their decision-making. But Geralt could barely remember the child he’d been before he’d undergone the Trial of the Grasses. He vaguely remembered that everything had been more intense beforehand, but he’d also been a child, and many children calmed down as they moved into adulthood. And it was so long ago now, almost eighty years. 

But Lambert _hadn’t_ changed like that. He’d been a fiery little runt when he’d come to Kaer Morhen, and he’d been a fiery bastard when he left it. Geralt had been newly on the Path when Lambert had been brought to Kaer Morhen. Geralt had watched him grow up, winter to winter, watched him become a Witcher, and Lambert after the mutagens had been just like Lambert before. 

Sometimes Geralt envied Lambert the strength of his feelings. Maybe Geralt wouldn’t have made such a hash of everything with Yennefer if he’d been able to feel everything more normally. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so desperate for passion. What he felt for Yennefer was painful, but it felt so...so big. So important. So meaningful. Was that what Lambert felt all the time? What the Cat School Witchers felt? What humans and elves and everyone else who wasn't a Witcher felt? The idea was simultaneously alluring and terrifying. 

But Geralt didn’t envy Lambert tonight, grieving the death of someone he’d loved. So Geralt did what Witchers did for each other: he got drunk by Lambert’s side, and sucked him off when Lambert wanted that, and slept beside him. He nursed Lambert’s hangover the next morning, and then they went their separate ways. Geralt promised to look into one of the assassins for Lambert, because the assassin was in Skellige and eventually Geralt would make his way there. 

Nobody looked out for Witchers but other Witchers. If Emhyr or someone else betrayed Geralt someday, Lambert would avenge him, too. There was comfort in knowing that. 


	7. Triss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if you're a Triss shipper. I can see why people would be, especially based on her excellent casting in the show, but I am not. The cishet dude writers of the game have no idea how to write romance, and even Triss herself in-game states that she took advantage of Geralt--which she did. So this fic isn't gonna end up a Triss/Geralt story because the interactions between Triss and Geralt are just a little too upsetting for me.

Geralt hadn’t wanted to see Triss again. He hadn’t wanted to see her beautiful house wrecked, either, with her belongings tossed and pawed through by looters. He didn’t want to go into the house and discover that she’d kept the purple rose he’d given her, either, but he was looking for hints to her whereabouts. 

The myth was that a rose of that origin, given to someone you loved, would stay fresh and new forever. But this one had faded and dried like any other cut flower. Did that mean that the love between them had never been real? Or had the story just been a silly romantic myth?  The love had felt real enough at the time. But he’d had _amnesia_\--he hadn’t remembered anyone. Not Eskel or Lambert or Vesmir when they’d found him, and certainly not Yennefer, far away and dealing with her own troubles. As far as he'd known, he'd never been loved in his whole life, and then suddenly there was a beautiful, powerful woman who wanted him.

When his memories came back, Geralt had realized that there was no way Triss hadn’t known about Yennefer. She had known and not only not told him about Yennefer, but instead taken advantage of his memory loss to fulfill her own desires. 

He had ended the relationship quickly after that realization and desperately tried not to look back since.

But when Geralt later found himself faced with the King of the Beggars and Triss, listening to the man spew grandiose bullshit about how noble his extortion racket truly was, Geralt couldn’t help looking to Triss as the only reasonable person in the room. It was easy to pretend, for a little while, that they were partners again, looking out for each other. That she hadn't lied and manipulated him and tried to keep him from the woman he loved. Strange how easy it was to forget that, to just enjoy the sight and scent of her, and to let the relief and pleasure of seeing her again flood through him. 

This was why he’d been avoiding her. Because he’d known it would be so easy to just see her as the friend and lover he’d wanted so much. It had only been six months since then. Nothing like long enough. 

After leaving the Grove, seeing Triss reduced to clearing granaries of rats and only getting to keep less than a fifth of the reward for the work, Geralt realized he  _ especially _ hadn’t wanted to see this. He’d already known how far most of the Sorceresses had fallen. He’d helped Keira Metz after all, and she’d been making hemorrhoid creams for backwater villagers.  But he hadn’t  _ loved _ Keira Metz like he'd loved Triss. Seeing her forced to this hurt him in a whole new way. 

Part of what had drawn him to Sorceresses (all of them, as it was by no means just Yennefer and Triss he’d slept with) was that they were never, ever afraid of him. Women who could fry a man with lightning or throw him halfway across the continent with a single portal didn’t fear a single Witcher.  And their power was attractive in itself. Geralt couldn’t deny that either. Catching the eye of the powerful was its own rush. Catching the eyes of _multiple_ powerful women...well, there was a reason Lambert was so jealous of Geralt, and why the other Wolf School Witchers called him the pretty one.

Yennefer had fallen on her feet by pure chance--by her connection to Ciri, which made her a desirable resource to Emhyr. But most of the others from the Lodge...Radovid had torn Phillippa’s eyes out, burned others at the stake, some were missing, and the rest were like Keira and Triss, desperately trying to survive in a world that didn’t want them. Where their powers had once made them objects of admiration it now made them targets of persecution. 

So Geralt sat in the granary and talked with Triss. A dull ache sat under his breastbone as he did it. He pretended not to understand that she was asking him about Yennefer to see if he was available again now. He hid the mixed longing and disgust he felt.

Geralt  _ didn’t _ bother to hide his disgust when Triss’s employer sold them out to the witch hunters. A few moments before, the granary had been a quiet place for a conversation. Now it was a quiet place for a murder, facing three armed men. 

It would have taken a better man than Geralt not to relish killing witch hunters. He’d already killed a few in his life, and if he were honest--which thankfully nobody had ever asked him to be on this subject--he would have to admit that he took any opportunity to kill representatives of the Church of the Eternal Flame. Not that they seemed interested in denying him excuses. 

The only disappointment was how easy they were. Just ordinary men with ordinary reflexes, their swords only enchanted enough to hold a fine edge, nothing more. Geralt sent one of their heads spinning across the room, where it landed with a thump among the sacks. He watched dispassionately as another drowned in his own blood after Geralt stabbed him through the lung. The third would bleed to death, glaring up at Geralt as he clutched the gushing stump of his arm. 

Geralt would have waited till they died but Triss was apparently impatient. She set them on fire. 

Geralt respected a woman who’d set a witch hunter on fire when he was already dying. 

After they parted ways, Geralt made every effort to return to avoiding her. He privately burned the rose he’d taken from her house. 

But he remembered her burning witch hunters to death and felt a little wistful. 


	8. Sukrus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to get Geralt to sleep with Hattori too, but honestly, I've been too converted by the Eibhear/Elihal ship that a small contingent of writers have going here on AO3. I want those two to get married and have little elven babies. So instead you get Geralt/Sukrus.

Nobody knew fine blades like Witchers did. And where Witchers and other experts gathered to discuss quality swords and their making, the names of certain craftsmen kept coming up. Eibhear Hattori was one of those names. Everyone who knew about swords knew about Hattori blades. Master swordsmiths were rare enough, and elven ones rarer still. 

So when Geralt happened to be hungry during his time in Novigrad and went into a small restaurant that specialized in dumplings and pies, Geralt had not expected the owner and proprietor to be Hattori himself. He even less expected Hattori to manipulate Geralt into a ridiculous caper involving a Skelligan mercenary, his estranged brother-in-law, two factions of Novigrad’s criminal underworld, and crates of supplies which smelled like piss, but that was just how Geralt’s life went. 

The real shock was that this mess ended up with Hattori being able to return to blacksmithing and Geralt not only getting off but receiving some absolutely magnificent swords as well. Geralt had expected all of this to go much worse. 

It was in the middle of the ridiculous chain of events that the massive Skelligan mercenary, Sukrus, asked Geralt some very blunt questions. Given that Geralt’s introduction to the man had been a fistfight, perhaps the level of bald intrusiveness shouldn’t have surprised him. 

Hattori had already retreated into his rooms upstairs, anxious about how everything had gone down with Tinboy and Van Hoorn and anticipating tonight’s criminal activities too. The poor elf clearly didn’t have the constitution to be mucking around with organized crime, but desperate times and all that. Sukrus’s men were outside, drinking a bottle of Hattori’s wine and eating dumplings. The plate between Geralt and Sukrus was already empty. It was late enough now that Hattori had closed the shop, but not late enough for it to be full dark yet. And it needed to be dark for them to raid the warehouse.

“Bored out of me skull waiting," Sukrus grumbled. "So come, tell me: is it true what they say about Witchers?”

Narrowing his eyes, Geralt stared across at the other man. 

“People say all sorts of stupid shit about Witchers,” Geralt hedged, now concerned that this would lead somewhere offensive. 

“Well I hear all of them are cocksuckers,” Sukrus said, in far too loud and cheerful a voice. “Or outright buggers. That true?”

There it was. The fact that this particular rumor was often true didn’t make the question less odious. Leaning back in his chair, Geralt considered his next words carefully. 

“If you want another fistfight, I’m sure we could find someone down by the docks to oblige you. I’m not interested in a second round.”

Sukrus shrugged. “Sure, that’d pass the time too. But I’m just askin’ because if any of that’s true, we’ve got a couple hours to kill. Might as well get sucked off.”

Geralt had been the object of less flattering propositions--the Crones of Crookback Bog came to mind--but it had been a while. He stared at the other man. 

“Are you at all afraid I’ll hurt you for saying that to me?” Geralt asked, mostly just curious to know the answer. Most men  _ would _ get violent at the suggestion that they’d go down on their knees for another man. “I knocked you down in a few seconds when you tried to come at me, remember.”

At this Sukrus grinned. The fist-sized bruise around his eye was purpling up beautifully and it was a small miracle it hadn’t swelled shut. “Well yeah, but I’m not a mainland pansy who can’t take a hit. A love-tap like that won’t make a Skelligan  less interested.”

At this, Geralt shook his head, smiling despite himself. He’d spent enough time in Skellige to know that this kind of attitude toward violence was, while not universal among the island’s people, widespread enough that Sukrus was telling the truth. They were a fighty lot, prone to settling disagreements with their fists, and once a matter was settled, they were just as likely to be friends afterward as enemies.

But still, Geralt didn’t like being treated as a public convenience. That he loved giving head was irrelevant compared to this level of rudeness. So he determined to ignore Sukrus. 

Sukrus apparently didn’t want to be ignored. He leaned forward, still smiling. 

“Never done it with a man before. It must be different, right? Because other men know what it’s like, so they know what they’re doing.”

Geralt almost rose to the bait. He almost said ‘That’s not true, there are plenty of women who are great at getting a man off, and plenty of men who are terrible at it.’ But that would have meant acknowledging that Sukrus’s dirty rumors were true. Geralt stayed silent instead. 

“A man asked me to bugger him once,” Sukrus went on, apparently determined. “Sweet young lad, beautiful freckles and the softest curls. Almost said yes. But I got the notion that he wanted more than just a quick slap and tickle, so I turned him down. Didn’t want to be a heartbreaker.”

“Can’t imagine how you could be, with manners like this,” Geralt grumbled under his breath. Sukrus must have heard him because he laughed again. 

“Oh aye, I’m rough around the edges. But come on. I like licking a woman between the legs plenty, so you must love it with men too, right?”

Geralt glared at the big man. “Tell me. You ever imagined putting a man’s unwashed prick in your mouth? Getting right up close to his dank sweaty balls? That sound appealing to you? I can smell you and your clothes from over here, so I can tell you now that no one who isn’t being paid for the service will want anything to do with any part of you.”

For a moment, Sukrus’s face grew stormy, all drawn brows and pursed lips. Geralt wondered if he was indeed about to get punched. 

Then Sukrus nodded. “Ah, that’s fair. Well all right then. I’ve got all this time and you got my brother-in-law to pay me. So I’ll go get cleaned up.”

Geralt watched in astonishment as the other man rose, went over to the door, told Geralt to lock it behind him, and left Hattori’s restaurant. Geralt was trying to decide if Sukrus’s determination that Geralt would suck his dick was flattering or insulting when Hattori cleared his throat from the stairs. 

“I, ah, couldn’t help overhearing,” he confessed, sounding embarrassed. “I apologize for his behavior. I knew he was a bit of a boor, but that was…” He trailed off, seemingly unable to find the right word for it. 

“Yeah,” Geralt agreed.

“So are you going to do it?” Hattori asked. 

Turning an incredulous stare on the elf, Geralt started to answer that no, of course he wasn’t going to do it, when he let himself imagine it. 

If Sukrus were clean, and if he hadn’t approached in such a crass manner, Geralt would have absolutely said yes. Sukrus wasn’t bad to look at. And Geralt was every bit as bored. Oh, he could meditate of course, but when had he ever chosen meditation over sex?

Then Geralt realized that if Hattori were asking, it might indicate that _he_ didn’t find the idea repellent either. 

“Would you?” Geralt asked, interested in the answer. 

Hattori grew flustered, raising his hand to rub at his face and neck. He came slowly the rest of the way down the stairs before sitting down next to Geralt. His slow progress, and the extended silence in response to such an inflammatory question, made Geralt certain that here was a kindred spirit. Unlike Sukrus. 

“I already have a lover," Hattori admitted at last, looking anxiously at Geralt. "He, ah, lives across town." 

Geralt smiled as softly as he knew how, knowing how terrifying it was to admit something like that to a stranger. 

“Tell me about him,” he said, opening up the conversation for further detail as he settled himself more comfortably in his chair. 

After that, Hattori seemed all eager to share every detail about his beloved, who was a tailor. Geralt was happy enough to listen, too, and happier still to know that there were others living and loving even here and now in Redania. 

One topic led to another, and by the time Sukrus returned, Geralt was in a very good mood and much more willing to do yet another ridiculous unpaid favor for Hattori. 

And Sukrus--Sukrus looked like he’d put a real effort into his appearance, facial hair freshly trimmed, hair still wet from washing, and wearing fresh clothes under his armor. He smelled like soap.

“Let me just...” Hattori excused himself, retreating up the stairs with a conspiratorial glance at Geralt. 

Sukrus moved into Geralt’s space, not exactly looming but standing very expectantly with his thumbs stuck into his belt. 

“So how about it? Do me a favor and I’ll do you one.”

“You’d suck me off?” Geralt asked, incredulous. 

“No, but I’d give you a hand, friendly-like.”

For several seconds Geralt was sure he was going to refuse. He’d slept with Sorceresses and royalty and powerful creatures. Was he _really_ going to lower himself to this?

“Why not,” he said instead. “But if you get bossy, try to grab my head or say anything crude to me, I’ll get up and walk out.”

With a different man Geralt would have _liked_ those things. But Sukrus was lucky to be getting this much. 

So Geralt wound up on his knees. He got Sukrus hard with his mouth, watching as the big man stared down him with an expression of rapt fascination. And since this was happening, Geralt figured: why not show off. So he did his sword-swallower trick, relaxing his throat and sliding down till he reached the freshly-washed black curls at the base of Sukrus’s cock. 

“Merciful Freya, I thought that was just a myth,” Sukrus breathed, every bit as stunned as Geralt could wish. 

Normally Geralt would have jerked himself off while doing this. But instead he just let his erection sit, trapped in his breeches, determined to make Sukrus return the favor. 

And he did, too. Once he’d recovered himself and Geralt had wiped his mouth, Sukrus pulled Geralt into his lap, got his breeches and underclothes open, and brought Geralt to a quick but satisfying release. Which he got all over Sukrus's clean clothes. Because Sukrus was so clearly unused to thinking about such logistics. 

Geralt didn’t apologize for it. But when a fight broke out at the warehouse, he waded into it at Sukrus’s side. 


	9. Corinne Tilly

The idea of Dreamers had always been disturbing to Geralt. Dreams were not meant to be controlled, he felt. They happened when they needed to. He trusted his dreams, trusted his mind to sort itself out through them, trusted them as a vehicle for knowledge to come to him when he was open and ready. He’d dreamed of the Wild Hunt, after all, and Yennefer, and Ciri, and look where that had led. He’d found Yen and it turned out the Wild Hunt was after Ciri. 

So the idea of someone reaching into his mind and getting him to dream something specific at their whim seemed...perverse and terrifying, profoundly vulnerable in a way he didn’t like. Even had the idea of messing with dreams been less alarming, he didn’t want to let anyone into his mind again. Yennefer had pried her way in once, and that had almost convinced him to never see her again. The alien feeling of someone pawing through in his thoughts, feeling his feelings, and seeing through his eyes--eugh. And for it to be a stranger was even worse. 

(But then, Geralt himself was no better, was he? He regularly used the Axii sign on people to make them do what he wanted. Never for malicious purpose, and often to avoid violence, but was there any good way to control a person’s mind and will? Probably not. It was just a necessity of survival, like so many ugly things.)

And Geralt needed to find Ciri. In the end, no complaint he had or could possibly have would stand up to that necessity. In a city this large, where she might not even _ be _ any longer--not even his capacity for tracking would help him here. He’d already tried. Too many smells, too many footprints, too much constant movement and change. 

If Geralt had been asked to describe what he imagined a Dreamer would do, he would have pictured something like being under the control of Axii. Back in Kaer Morhen, all those decades ago, he’d practiced it with other Witcher initiates for countless hours. So he sought out Corinne at her lodgings with trepidation--because depending on who used it and how, Axii could feel either sick, like being drowned in honey, or sweet, as though someone gently guided his mind with a warm hand. Geralt didn’t want _either_ with some mage he didn’t know. 

Instead, Corinne asked him to recall memories of Ciri. And she sat and listened to him, looking into his eyes, attentive and smelling of beeswax candles and warm human body. The heat of her closed room made him sink into the chair, soft-limbed and loving as he described meeting Ciri. Corinne asked for more, and it seemed natural to give it, describing learning to be a father to his child when he always felt so lost and so desperately under-equipped for the task. Then the pride of managing to care for her in a way that felt right, felt like enough, felt like it did her and her growing mind justice. And even when Geralt got to harder memories--the shame of getting it wrong, when he’d been too harsh or simply thoughtless, and worse still, the terror of the world encroaching upon them, of seeing Ciri fight and win and knowing how close she had come to dying--even then the warmth of the room kept him loose and willing. Able to speak, even, of dying, or half-dying, side by side with Yen. Of Ciri taking them to...somewhere, the place with the apple trees always in bloom, which he could barely remember yet could still _feel_ and _smell_ if he tried, as if the apple orchard were inside him somehow. 

It was easy to talk to Corinne. To respond to the need for honesty with honesty, for once. His attempts to shut it down were reflexive, as automatic as dodging a sword blow, but Corinne's face stayed curious and gentle as she probed along his resistance till it gave way.

So when he lay down to dream...he was not unhappy. Nor afraid. Just warm and relaxed and thinking of Ciri. 

He dreamed of her immediately, and Dandelion, and thinking of either of them was a sweet pang. He awoke suffused with longing, with urgency--and given that the dream of Ciri had given way to dreams about Dandelion, well. Perhaps it was not a surprise that Geralt woke up hard. 

Corinne smiled at him, her eyebrows lifting, and said that was normal. He smiled back, held her gaze a little too long. Geralt could smell Corinne's arousal in the room. It was faint, not immediate or urgent, but she would have him, he thought, if he asked.

Then remembered Yen, and Triss, and looked away with a sigh. While Yen had not asked for his faithfulness, she had demanded that he not sleep with other _women,_ so that she would be the only one in his life. They were not together now, they hadn’t been for years, but...it was different now he'd seen her again. Felt that same fish-hook feeling pulling at his heart again. She was still Yennefer. The mother of his child in every way that mattered, the love he had wanted with such intensity. 

So he thanked Corinne and left. If nothing else, he could hope that it had brought him one step closer to Ciri.


	10. Zoltan Chivay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for one usage of the word "pr**titute" because I simply could not come up with a better setting-typical word.

That Dandelion had somehow contrived to inherit a brothel came as no surprise. Of all the things to inherit and all the people to inherit them, this seemed as perfect as a fairy tale ending. Dandelion loved prostitutes--though not in the way most people would have expected. He’d spent enough time performing in brothels and bars to have befriended more than his fair share of workers with negotiable affections. Any brothel owned by Dandelion would see its workers treated well, Geralt knew. 

That Dandelion and Zoltan were still friends was also no surprise. Zoltan was as loyal to his friends as a griffin to its mate, and every bit as fierce in their defense.

What  _ was _ a surprise was that the brothel Dandelion owned seemed to have been taken over by squatters. That Zoltan was giving them the boot, however, with a great deal of shouting and swearing, brought things right back into the expected norm again. 

Once the building was cleared of unwelcome guests, Zoltan grabbed Geralt by the strap of Geralt’s sword harness, pulling him down for a warm, whiskery kiss on the mouth. 

“Good to be able to greet you properly this time,” Zoltan smiled, all warmth. “But you look worried, all pinched up and underweight. We have to get you fed! How about I see what stores the vagrants left untouched, and you tell me what’s got you looking so fussed.”

“I’d rather not burden you,” Geralt demurred. 

“Fuck off, Geralt,” Zoltan replied immediately, rolling his eyes and pulling Geralt along behind him toward the kitchen. “If you’re talking like that, you  _ need _ to spill your guts to me now.” 

“There’s...a few things,” Geralt admitted with what he knew was bad grace. 

“Let me guess: Triss? Yennefer, perchance?” Zoltan guessed, on the point as always. He knew Geralt too well. 

“Got something a tinge more important to take care of now,” Geralt said, changing the subject immediately. Zoltan was--well, ‘a gossip’ was the wrong word for it, he hated malicious rumors. But he was the sort of caring where he wanted to know everything going on for those close to him, including all the details of Geralt’s other lovers, especially the women. It made Zoltan spectacularly suited to his companionship with Dandelion, who loved to talk about himself, and especially about himself with the women in his life--and it made Zoltan a more difficult match for Geralt. Getting information from Geralt was like pulling teeth, Zoltan had always said, and Geralt couldn’t disagree. 

“Meaning?” Zoltan pressed, with a look in his eye that said he was going to come back to asking about Triss and Yennefer. 

“I’m looking for Ciri,” Geralt admitted. 

Zoltan’s response was every bit as fond and concerned about Ciri as Geralt could wish. And he knew Geralt well enough to immediately ask if Geralt had seen her in his dreams. A flood of warmth went through Geralt at that.

The search for Dandelion via his many female lovers was much less enjoyable, as was the housecleaning required to get the Rosemary and Thyme back into any fit state. (Worse still was encountering General Morvan Voorhis again in the process of locating Dandelion's lovers--and thus discovering that Emhyr intended to cede the throne to Ciri if he found her, and wed her to Voorhis as well, apparently. The thought of Ciri being forced to marry a man for political reasons turned Geralt’s stomach, but the knowledge that he and Yen had trained her well enough that she could instantly destroy anyone who sought to take advantage of her was comforting. And while Geralt knew Ciri to strongly prefer women, he supposed there were worse-looking and worse-mannered Nilfgaardian men who might have been selected for the task. Compared to most, Voorhis was both charming and handsome, managing to even be polite to the mercenary boor that was Geralt himself. And Voorhis liked horses, which was a relatively harmless interest as these things went.)

Geralt found himself frustrated with Dandelion all over again in the process of talking to the women. _Geralt_ knew better than to make lovers’ promises he couldn’t or wouldn’t keep, but it seemed that even after all this time Dandelion  _ still _ made them compulsively to everyone he met. Dandelion always figured that what a lover didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Which had been proven manifestly untrue in his case, over and over again, as his various  _ objets d’amour _ found out about each other or were found out by their betrayed spouses and concerned relatives. 

But that was Dandelion. In Geralt’s more charitable moments, he told himself that Dandelion’s capacity to see beauty and worth in everything and everyone was what made him so incredibly attractive. Dandelion was always open to romance, all the time with everyone, as fascinated by the ugly and shameful parts of a person as by their strengths and beauties. His adoring acceptance made him wonderful. 

That he was _also_ prone to romance with the married, the betrothed, and those unaware of his far-flung attentions was much less wonderful. But even then, he _somehow_ managed to win and keep people. With Dandelion, he could be ogling the cleavage of the person next to you and yet you still felt special being by his side. Geralt didn’t understand it even having experienced it first-hand. He’d wondered, sometimes, if Dandelion had some natural capacity for a subtle form of Axii, a kind of romantic mind-control that caused everyone who encountered him to swing into his amorous orbit and stay there. 

Geralt, at least, had known and loved Dandelion in such a way that Dandelion had never managed as many falsehoods with him. But running around the city attempting to find and talk to Dandelion’s most recent amours--all with the uncomfortable private knowledge that Geralt was as familiar with Dandelion’s romantic inclinations and body as any of them--that brought back all the old aggravations. 

Geralt had a moment of profound panic when he thought that Dandelion had slept with Elihal. Geralt did  _ not _ want to be the one to tell Hattori that the lover he spoke of so highly was unfaithful. But it turned out that this passion, at least, had been one-sided with Dandelion as the unlucky party. Elihal did not sleep with humans. 

The silver lining of the days it took to find and speak to Dandelion’s other lovers was that Geralt had days in Zoltan’s company. Days of bearded kisses, being pressed with fine food, and Zoltan’s stout cock working Geralt into a whimpering mess on any surface short enough for Zoltan to reach. 

If Dandelion's magical talent was making everyone he fell for believe, however briefly, that they were the center of his world, Zoltan's talent was a capacity to aggressively take care of everyone he loved. Which was magical too, in its own way, given the difficult people he chose to care for. 

Despite Dandelion's _many_ and varied faults, he had won the loyalty of both Geralt and Zoltan. Good thing they had each other to take the edge off. 


	11. Triss, again

Sitting in the audience with Zoltan, listening to Dandelion's new flame sing about Geralt’s miserable mistakes with Yennefer--Geralt’s head spun with how mortifying it all was. He was going to wring Dandelion’s neck for telling Calonetta all these painful details about Geralt’s love life. Geralt loved the man, but Dandelion blabbed everything to everyone with no regard for privacy or decorum. The only details he wouldn't spill--at least most of the time--were his and others’ affairs with the same sex. Dandelion had just barely the self-preservation required not to do that at least. But _everything_ else, apparently, even things confessed to him in private during Geralt’s self-doubting moments, were fair game not only for gossip but for memorable music. 

This disaster of awkwardness was topped only by later encountering Sigismund Dijkstra again while both of them (along with two gang bosses, just to make this even worse) were completely nude in a bath-house.  The fact that Dijkstra had an absolutely massive cock, which nearly distracted Geralt at a crucial moment, was just insult to injury. It was a lot to see. Literally. 

Geralt had rescued Dandelion from some truly horrendous messes before. So really, Geralt wasn’t surprised that Dandelion had found himself in the middle of yet another. When Geralt discovered that Dandelion had gotten himself captured by Caleb Menge of all people, however--well. Geralt tried as much as possible not to kill his fellow humans, but witch hunters were always a special exception. If Dandelion had been unable to avoid getting captured by someone, Geralt was grateful to him for at least having the good grace to get captured by  _ this _ group. It removed any sense of guilt he might have in slaughtering his way through if necessary. 

Getting to the witch hunters to start the party would be the problem. The witch hunter headquarters turned out to be fortified and heavily armed with patrols along the top of the gate. 

Triss’s idea of having Geralt put her in shackles and turn her in as a hostage to Menge was one of the worst Geralt had ever heard, but he had no better options, and nor could he blame her for suggesting it. If the witch hunters had been actively seeking out Witchers rather than Sorceresses right now (as Menge himself had implied they soon would) Geralt would have suggested turning in himself instead. He, at least, had the benefit of Witcher training and healing. 

But lack of better options and fear for the lives of Dandelion and Ciri compelled them both. So Geralt put the dimeritium shackles on Triss, took her by the arm, and brought her to the witch hunter headquarters. 

Geralt counted heads as they allowed him through the gate. Two visible on the wall, looking out into the street. Three leading them into the main building. At least nine in the main hall, finishing up with dinner from the looks of it. Three on the landing. Then the torturer, a man Geralt wanted to murder so instantly that he felt it like a physical force in his body he had to subdue. He thanked his lucky stars for the Witcher mutations blunting his feelings, as it kept him from stabbing the man through the eye at once. 

At last Geralt was allowed to see Menge himself. 

Geralt kept up the facade of collecting Triss's bounty for as long as he could. But even despite Geralt's insistence that they leave Triss untouched so he could sell her to someone else if Menge didn't pay up, they took Triss next door to the torture chamber. And Menge gave Geralt himself a look of such smug disdain that Geralt simply gave up. Famed Witcher restraint could only take so much, and while he loved Ciri more than life itself and Dandelion a great deal as well, they were elsewhere, while Triss was _here, right now,_ in a literal torture chamber. 

Hot blood splattered all over Geralt's face when his arm snapped out, cutting Menge's throat open with a single sweep of his knife. The gurgling shriek Menge let out as he keeled over alerted the guards. 

Everything after that was just automatic.  First came breaking down the door to the next room. Then came Triss setting fire to the torturer right before Geralt stabbed him through the temple. Then came a brief but satisfying fight with the men who poured in through the door, presenting themselves for slaughter like fatted pigs.  They screamed when Triss set their flesh alight, and died when Geralt cut them open. 

When the pair of them had stalked together through the whole building looking for stragglers, and the offices of the witch hunters stood silent and still except for the the heavy breathing of Geralt and Triss, she rounded on him. 

Geralt expected her to be angry at his failure or relieved at her own rescue. Instead she gave him a shaky smile. 

“You left me in there for all of what, thirty seconds? They hadn’t even taunted me for long enough to get the pliers out yet.” She shook her head. “But what did I expect, really,” she admitted, “you’re not famed for your skills at subterfuge. If I’d wanted that, I should have asked Dijkstra to send someone with us. Hell, Dijkstra should have done it himself.”

The dim light of the candles caught on her hair and lashes, glittering on her fine curls and the wet splatter on her clothes. He could just make out her freckles, too, the lovely constellations on her cheeks and forehead which he had traced with his lips and gazed upon so often that he could almost count the marks. 

In that moment, looking at her still damp with witch hunter blood, Geralt remembered again why he loved her. She was his  _ match, _ every bit as righteous and vicious as he could be, and every bit as bound and determined to protect freaks and outcasts as he was. She had come to _this_ place in dimeritium shackles, prepared for her own torture, to protect Ciri and Dandelion. She had burned witch hunters alive. Compared to this, what did he have to be angry at her about?

Then he looked around Menge’s office, and the weight of Ciri and Dandelion’s lives came crashing down on his shoulders, leaving him heavy and tired among the gory mess. 

But perhaps the gods, if they existed, smiled on lovesick fools: Menge had a whole stack of letters in his desk, including one from a Church spy with instructions for how to contact him. Which meant they had another lead to follow to find Dandelion.

Triss burned the headquarters down after them. She didn’t stay long enough to watch the conflagration, but Geralt did, from the safe distance of a few streets away. 

A day later they met with the spy--and watching Triss fool the man's mind into thinking she was setting his balls on fire. Her hand curled into a ruthless grip, holding her power over him like a ball of putty she meant to crush into a new shape. Bright flickers of magic rippled across his skin as he arched and shuddered and spilled what he knew. 

Geralt stood by as she interrogated the man. Since she seemed to have this well in hand, dragging out details of Menge’s association with King Radovid and what had become of Dandelion, Geralt had the space to wonder: could Triss do this to _him?_ Would Witchers be immune in some way? Or could she torture _him_ using his mind alone, just like this? 

The thought sent a shiver down Geralt’s spine before settling inside him like the curl of a watchful dragon’s tail. 

Having gotten the information she needed, it took only a quick surge of power for Triss to wipe the spy’s memories. He collapsed as she did it, his eyes rolling back into his skull as his knees gave out and dropped him onto the rotting floorboards of the abandoned house. Geralt stared down at the man, twitching as his mind tried and failed to adjust to all the successive intrusions. 

Another matching shiver went through Geralt. 

“And I thought you’d showed your claws before,” Geralt breathed, unable to keep the note of admiration out of his voice. But when he looked at her, t he way her eyes narrowed made Geralt wish he hadn’t said anything. 

“Yes, thank you for pointing out how this awful city has lowered me to the same twisted level as the _witch hunters,”_ she snapped. 

“I didn’t mean--” he began to explain, but she snapped her hand down and cut him off. 

“Does any of this even bother you?” she demanded. “Can you even feel how vile this all is? Because it makes  _ me _ feel dirty and sick. We’ve  _ killed _ people, Geralt, lots of people, and I promised myself I’d never use my powers  _ this _ way!” She waved down at the unconscious body at her feet just as another ripple of jerky movement went through it, scraping the heels of his shoes across the wood.  In the silence that followed the click her throat made as she swallowed sounded loud to Geralt’s ears. 

“Do you honestly think I've had the luxury of clean hands until now?” Geralt asked, half-curious and half-angry. “I’ve been attacked by angry mobs and bandits and political schemers--people who were just scared or desperate or passionate about their ideals. But the _witch hunters?"_ He sneered, lip curling. "Not just members of the Church, but the ones in _that_ building, who ate meals listening to the screaming and then went to clean the bloody floors afterward? No, killing _them_ doesn't bother me. ” He kicked at the spy's boot. "And _this_ man--you spared me from having to kill him, which was kind of you, but I don't care about him either. He's an instrument in helping Radovid and Menge to do all this."

Triss turned away, hiding her face from him. 

“Nevermind,” she sighed, sounding small and tired. “I’m going home to bathe and drink myself to sleep. But...if you truly don’t judge me for this, then there’s something I could use help with.”

Before Geralt could say anything else she vanished in the swirling light of a portal. It snapped closed behind her, leaving behind only the faint floral scent of her bedroom. 

Yet again Geralt wondered: what would a normal human feel now? He wasn’t even sure what _he_ was feeling, let alone being able to imagine how some other man might respond. Was he broken in some way that allowed him to do the things he did? Was _she?_

No answers came. They never did. 


	12. Triss, final

The matter Triss wanted help with seemed, thankfully, to be a straightforward affair. A young nobleman had dabbled in alchemy and been found out by the witch hunters, who took a special delight in targeting both the foolish and the children of the wealthy. Rich parents could be persuaded to pay very great sums of money for the return of their children alive and with the same number of limbs--or even dead, just to have something to bury. Since Alfred Vegelbud was an idiot from a famously decadent family, he was a prime target for the witch hunters. 

The pick-up time was to be one of the Vegelbud parties, in the hope that their son could be squirreled out among the other guests coming and going without alerting the guards. That would have been well and good, but a party for the upper crust meant Geralt making himself presentable. At least he’d kept the clothes made for him by the imperial tailors, meaning he didn’t have to buy new ones, but he still had to _wear_ the damned things. He was used to fighting and even sleeping in heavy armor, so he was no stranger to uncomfortable or cumbersome garb. Yet fancy clothes had always galled him. The types of discomfort were so different and didn’t even come with the benefit of protecting him from harm. And despite the fact that many people over the years had found him handsome in tailored clothing of expensive cloth, Triss included, Geralt himself just felt like a ninny. 

At least it was a masked ball so he didn’t have to shave. Small mercies. For the purposes of misdirection, Geralt spent the evening in a perfect copy of the boy's mask and hood, getting mistaken for him and stuffing himself with very expensive food. A spread so excessive that even a Witcher's stomach could be filled to bursting was the kind of rare uncomplicated pleasure Geralt's long life had taught him to cherish while it lasted. They had to wait till it was full dark to get him away from the estate anyway. 

Much more complicated was the way Triss got drunk in the middle of the party, almost fell into a fountain, and then tried to kiss Geralt. Her small hands radiated heat even through his beard and her breath carried the scent of a fine vintage as she maneuvered her mouth toward his. 

Turning his face away from hers so she slipped and only managed to nestle her face against his neck took much, much more effort than the small movement should have. He loved the size of her in his arms, loved her tiny waist in the crook of his elbow, loved the smell of her perfume enveloping him from her lush hair. Most importantly, he loved that she had ventured out of hiding to protect her persecuted community. 

The fireworks illuminated her brown skin, gilding her into a perfect vision. 

But he still loved Yennefer, and Triss had still taken advantage of him. It just got harder and harder to remember that when Yen wasn’t here and Triss’s own better qualities were shining bright enough to blind him to what she’d done. 

As he settled her by his side on a bench and she tucked her warm face against his collarbone, maybe hiding in her embarrassment, Geralt asked himself yet again if he should even be angry at all. Was what she’d done _really_ so bad? Was it so bad to be _desired_ with an ardor he knew to be unaltered and uncomplicated by magic? Was it so bad for her to find him so worthy that any opportunity to be with him had seemed worth it to her?

It didn’t matter anyway, he told himself. An unprotected location where there might be witch hunters hiding around any corner was no place for a romantic interlude. He had to keep focused. 

He told himself that all the way through his lonely ride home from the Vegelbud estate, having sent Triss and Alfred off separately. 

**

When Geralt received a note from Triss two days later asking him for more help, he showed up at her place and found witch hunters knocking on doors nearby. Taking the stairs two at a time up to her third-floor rooms had him walking in on her landlady demanding Triss give over her jewelry as payment to cover the risks of harboring her this long, and then demanding that Triss vacate the premises. 

Geralt hadn’t planned on murdering more witch hunters today, especially not in the middle of the street in broad daylight. But what had he expected with Radovid as king? That the mad bastard would just change his mind and decide that nonhumans and mages and all the other ‘freaks’ were fine after all?

It took a desperate scramble, hiding around corners and behind crates, to get across the district to the nearest safehouse. There, he found perhaps thirty mages, alchemists, healers, and elves all crammed together in a tavern's cellar. And once they’d cleared a path through the sewers to the docks, once he’d loaded Triss and all the others onto a ship, once they'd pulled up the gangplank and hoisted sail--

\--it finally sank in that Triss was _leaving._ And not just leaving: already gone. Away from anywhere Geralt was going to be, away from where he would see her anymore, away from any possible relationship with him. 

He sat down on the cold, damp pier and watched the boat shrink into the distance. 

He felt...something, in the pit of his belly, emanating up through his ribcage to his throat. He couldn't tell what it was.

Maybe the feeling was relief. Maybe it was better this way--having to decide if he could forgive Triss had weighed upon him. Forgiveness didn't matter if she was hundreds of miles away. And if Triss had been destined to be with him, surely it wouldn't have come to this. 

Or maybe the feeling was sadness? If things had been different, he couldn't help thinking--if Triss had handled things differently when his memory had been gone, if Yennefer hadn't minded him sleeping with other women... 

Or maybe the feeling was just simple anger at the stinking mess Radovid had made of the North. Witch hunters attacking him in the streets, smuggling mages out through the sewers of a city that had once harbored and respected them--it was sickening, all of it. This wasn't how the Northern realms should be.

In the end it didn’t matter. Both Dandelion and Ciri were still missing. He couldn't afford to wallow. 

So he got up and went back to work.


	13. Sofus and Hal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another chapter where I lifted some dialog from the game. Also while both these characters are white in the game, because everyone is white in the game because Racism: fuck that.

Perhaps Geralt had set a bad example for Fate by sucking Sukrus off after getting into a fist-fight with him. Fate laughed at idiots, and a mistake made once and not learned from was a mistake made twice or more. 

It started out with convincing Dandelion’s new lover, Priscilla, to write a play. Geralt could see at once why Dandelion liked her; hell, if he’d been sure it wouldn’t have upset Dandelion, and if Geralt himself had been in the market for new female lovers, he might have made an offer to Priscilla himself. She was very much like Dandelion, with all of his wit and charm and confidence, but cannier. She had both a piercing stare and a mind for money. 

Geralt had been to plays before, and had known Dandelion for long enough to have some idea of what went into their production. But apparently the crowds in Novigrad were a little rougher than he was used to: ushers here didn’t just make sure everyone found seats, they made sure the crowd  _ stayed _ in their seats rather than getting up to attack the mummers if they didn’t like the play. So hiring ushers in Novigrad meant seeking out a rather rougher crowd. 

Which was how Geralt found his way to the docks. 

The bareknuckle fighting ring going on there seemed like a prime place to find men willing to wrestle playgoers into submission. So Geralt watched for long enough to determine who was in charge--a massive half-naked brawler covered in tattoos--and insinuated himself beside the man with a compliment. 

“Good fight. Some nice footwork there,” Geralt offered, because if he’d learned anything from Dandelion, it was that a compliment on something a person cared about could go a long way. 

But like so many things Dandelion did, this apparently got all the wrong kinds of attention. The man turned toward Geralt, eyeing him up and down with a distinctly predatory air.

“Challenging me, or is it Hal you wanna face?” came the growled response from the craggy face. Before Geralt could even respond to this, the man threw his arms out, already launching into selling the fight. “A Witcher versus the Beast of Metinna! Killer instincts versus primal rage!”

Heads turned toward them, saw Geralt’s eyes and swords and armor, and a murmur went through the crowd. 

Geralt tried to change the subject. “Are you really from Nilfgaard?” he asked, hoping to calm this back down. 

But this got him an absolutely thunderous scowl and the man looming even closer. He stood at least half a head taller than Geralt. 

“We’s from ploughin’ Metinna, dammit, not Nilfgaard!” the man spat, even more belligerent now. But it also didn’t put him off his spiel to the now-attentive crowd. The ones closest to the fight in progress, who probably had money on the outcome, weren’t paying attention, but the ones toward the back were happy to watch Geralt’s small drama unfold. “Raised by wild hounds on the windswept plains of Mag Deira! Brothers forged in bloodshed, veterans of Metinna’s infamous, filthy arenas!” the man shouted, clearly angling for maximum audience engagement. 

“So you’re not actually related?” Geralt tried again to draw the man onto a different subject, get him talking rather than seeing numbers and profits. 

It didn’t work. The big man’s eyes narrowed. “Who dares face the wild men of the South?” he called, loud and theatrical. “Who will look the Beasts in the eye?”

And that was an outright challenge, which those around them were clearly excited about, but Geralt was still trying to steer this away from a brawl. 

“I’d like to hire you to help out,” Geralt said with an open-armed shrug, making his body language non-confrontational. “We’re staging a play.”

This seemed to get the man’s actual attention rather than his business sense, finally. 

“Need us to kick some arse on stage?” he asked in a much quieter voice. 

“Actually want you to usher--keep the peace, make sure no one’s ass gets kicked. Onstage or off.”

This got a dismissive sniff. “Got the wrong men. Arse-kicking’s what we do. See, Hal’s no fan of mummings. Failed romance with someone in a roving troupe, I’ll spare you the details.”

But then the deep-set eyes swung back to Geralt. The man leaned sideways, moving right into Geralt’s space and speaking the next part conspiratorially into Geralt’s ear. “What about a wager? You’ll need something special to convince him. So here’s an idea: take us both on, same time! If you win, we'll do your job for free.” He drew himself up to his full size, going right back into his sales pitch for the people nearby. “Fight of the century! A Witcher ‘gainst the Two-Headed Dragon of Metinna!” 

A murmur went through the crowd, more people’s attention drifting from the current fight and onto Geralt. 

“What if I lose?” Geralt asked, internally resigning himself to a messy afternoon. 

“Oh, you’ll lose,” the big man grinned, hands on his hips and looking delighted now that he’d scented an absolutely prime business opportunity. “But we’ll still do your little job--you’ll just pay us double. That’ll give Hal motivation.”

Money wasn’t the problem. Geralt had the money--he’d picked up several lucrative Witcher contracts on the way here, including the one he’d collected on  _ twice _ for the ekkimara under Byways. But a Witcher against humans, even unarmed and not using Signs, even two larger men, still wasn’t a fair fight. And while Geralt loved fighting and winning, he often felt embarrassed afterwards when he did things like this. Things like this were why humans mistrusted and feared Witchers.

He considered just paying the money and demanding Dandelion pay him back later--gods knew he owed Geralt a great deal for rescuing him yet again from this massive Novigrad mess--but Dandelion never had much cash to spare. Even now he owned a brothel, it clearly wasn’t solvent right now. 

So Geralt sighed and agreed to the fight. 

After he’d beaten them, still panting with his knuckles aching and the crowd going absolutely mad as coin changed hands with both satisfaction and dismay, Geralt helped them up and told them where to find him. 

The big man, whose name was apparently Sofus, pulled his fellow pugilist Hal up to his side and shook him affectionately. Hal let out a protesting moan. Bruises were already coming up on both of them. 

“Well well--ain’t often you get such a lovely thrashing, is it Hal?” Sofus grinned. At least he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge. 

Hal, half his face hidden behind a thick black beard, shook his head, cradling his jaw. But his dark eyes lifted and traveled up and down Geralt much slower than they had during the fight. 

“Look, I’m good with herbs, at least let me make a poultice for you both,” Geralt offered. 

Sofus just laughed. “Hal here’s speechless, but I can see it in his mug: bugger likes you,” Sofus informed Geralt, and held his gaze for too long, eyebrows raised. 

Surely he didn’t mean--

“We’ll come to the Rosemary and Thyme tonight to talk plans, bet on it,” Sofus grinned, and then waved Geralt away. 

They fulfilled their promise, too, showing up just after sundown. Zoltan welcomed them in and then left to attend to his own business matters. After a quick discussion of logistics with the two fighters, where they needed to show up and when, how to contact them with any further information, the three settled into an evening of company. 

Geralt supplied them with drink from the house’s stores and a premium bruise treatment made just that evening. He figured it was the least he could do after besting them both and getting them to work for free. (Just like he was doing all this work for free, to help Dandelion.)

With only a little prompting, Geralt got their whole story--Sofus was both a champion fighter himself and one of the leading bookies for their little operation. And while Sofus was bigger and a quite proficient fighter, he happily admitted that Hal was the real skill of the operation. Hal won most of the fights he took. Further, Hal turned out not to be just quiet due to being punched by Geralt: he’d bitten off a chunk of his tongue during a fight some years ago, and while he was still capable of speech, he was apparently self-conscious about the slurred way he spoke. So Sofus did most of the talking. 

“What would you say to a second round of two on one?” Sofus asked, several ales in. He flashed a toothy smile. “Lower stakes this time, obviously.”

Shaking his head, Geralt let out an embarrassed chuckle. “I don’t mean to brag, but it would just be cruel of me to thrash you again.”

But Sofus and Hal both looked away at this, Hal taking another deep swig of his drink. “Wasn’t talking about brawling,” Sofus muttered, just loud enough to be audible to a Witcher. 

“Ohh,” Geralt said at last as comprehension dawned: Sofus and Hal _weren’t_ related after all. Which made sense; aside from their size they looked nothing alike, including having very different skin colors. Their actual relationship was probably not familial at all, and this evening wasn’t just about free booze and finding out the particulars of a job. 

“‘Brothers’ is just a euphemism for the public, isn’t it,” Geralt concluded after a brief pause to collect his thoughts. 

Sofus fixed Geralt with a pointed stare. “We’re all...fans of the theatre here, ain’t we?” 

The probing tone and deliberately opaque word choice were incredibly familiar to Geralt.

“Well you know what they say about Witchers,” Geralt laughed, wanting to reassure them. 

But this just got him two blank stares. “No? What do they say about them?”

Maybe that particular rumor had only circulated in Skellige then.

“That we’re cocksuckers and buggers, the lot of us,” Geralt confessed, and then watched the other two men visibly relax, sharing a glance between them.

“And that’s true?” Sofus asked, clearly intrigued.

“Of most of the Witchers _I’ve_ known, yeah. And me.”

“Well that’s some of the best news we’ve heard all week,” Sofus crowed, and then leaned forward, looking eager. “How about it, then? You and both of us.”

Mentally rearranging his evening plans, Geralt let himself consider it. 

“Both of you at once, really? Been a long time since I’ve been with more than one at a time,” he admitted. Hell, possibly the last time had been with the dragon. “That’s a hell of a partnership you two have.”

“We do everything together,” Sofus stated with a shrug, as if this were nothing. Hal nodded. He cast a fond sideways look at Sofus.

A twinge of bitter jealousy went through Geralt. But he boxed it up inside, shutting it down. It had no use here and would only spoil the fun. 

So Geralt went upstairs with the two, pausing only to snag the tin of thick salve out of his pack. 

Hal turned out not to like kissing any more than he liked talking, but he very clearly enjoyed getting Geralt’s clothes off and admiring his collection of scars, humming his approval as he traced his fingertips over them one by one. Both men were delighted by the marks, in fact, in the rare way full humans had sometimes of being envious, fascinated, and impressed all at once. They compared them favorably to their own extensive collections of tattoos. 

Since they both smelled clean enough, only a day’s honest sweat on them, Geralt offered to get the party started with his mouth. This was met with the kind of delight men usually had for offers of this type, followed by hastily-unlaced breeches. 

Once both of them were hard, it turned out they were each on the modest side in terms of endowment. Which allowed for an outcome Geralt hadn’t initially considered. When he proposed it, Hal let out a crow of delight and Sofus looked like he’d won something, throwing his arms up with a wordless whoop.

So Geralt wound up seated on Hal’s thighs, clutching at the man’s biceps as Sofus pushed in alongside Hal. If it had been a long time since Geralt been with more than one person at a time, it had been longer still since he’d done _this_\--years back at Kaer Morhen, in fact, maybe as long as a decade. Lambert had been bored one winter and Eskel and Geralt had been game to go along with his madcap idea. 

“Fuck, fuck, gimme a minute,” Geralt gasped, desperately trying to relax. Hal’s expression was a mix of silent concern and how any man might look with his prick shoved someplace tight and hot right alongside his lover’s. 

But it didn’t take long for Geralt to remember how to breathe and bear down and allow Sofus the rest of the way in. Didn’t take long to come, either. The asynchronous slide of both men into him, rubbing past each other so one dipped in deep and then the other, ground the first climax right out of him. 

He came again only a few minutes later, eyes squeezed shut and breathless with the intensity of it, to Sofus’s loud delight. He also hadn’t heard about the famed Witcher stamina, it seemed, and was every bit as enchanted by this revelation as he had been with the first. 

A third orgasm topped off an already exquisite evening, this one in Sofus’s scarred mouth with Hal cupping his balls. 

After they’d left, departing with another bottle of strong drink and a small tub of poultice, Geralt thought about them for a very long time. They did everything together: they fought together, seduced people together, fucked together. What was that like? Was it like his relationship with Eskel? He didn't know. 

He wanted to know.


	14. Dudu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not a ship chapter, it's a Dad Feels chapter

Performing in a play hadn’t been on Geralt’s list of things to try before he died. But now he’d done it, he found it had much more appeal than he’d anticipated. They hadn’t made him dress as anything but himself, and at the end, there had been a crowd of people clapping and cheering and delighted to see him. That was so rare in the life of a Witcher that it would have been worth it for that alone. 

He knew his acting had been wooden at best. Just as he’d warned the director it would be. Witcher mutations did not lend themselves well to emoting at the best of times, much less when he wasn’t actually feeling anything but self-conscious. But they’d found their doppler, Geralt had even earned a tidy sum for some of the most fun he’d had in a while, and they were one step closer to finding Dandelion--and Ciri. 

Which was when Zoltan interrupted to ask Dudu to turn himself into Ciri. 

Geralt was so stunned by the request--and by the tender, knowing look in Zoltan’s eyes--that he agreed without thinking. He hadn’t seen Ciri since she was sixteen and she was now twenty-one. Of _course_ Geralt wanted to see what Ciri looked like now--until the doppler actually shifted with a little rush of air, and there stood a fully-grown woman.

The seconds stretched out as Geralt stared. 

All this time he had been remembering the sixteen-year-old girl he’d known, face still round from baby fat, just tall enough to tuck under his chin if she ducked a bit. He’d seen the scar that was almost a match for his while it had been new, still tight and pulling at the skin of her face. It had softened with time, curving easily as Dudu gave Geralt a shy smile, but it hadn’t faded any, still bright and pink. Still an unforgivable mark of cruelty done to her when Geralt hadn’t been there to protect her. And as for everything else...she was tall now, the same height as Geralt himself, with an angular face and frame and lanky limbs. A grown woman, with pale skin and silvery-white hair tied into a messy bun--just like his. 

The thought that ran through him like a pitchfork was:  _ She looks like me. _

His child of surprise twice over, his beloved destiny, his daughter in everything  _ but _ blood. Yet there she stood: pale hair and skin like his, tall and rake-thin as he had been at that age, and even scarred as though fate had wanted them to be as much alike as possible. 

_ She looks like me.  _

Geralt stood frozen, unable to breathe, shocked by the feeling of tears prickling along his eyes for the first time in longer than he could remember. His gut twisted and he gritted his teeth, fearing he might actually be sick with the intensity of his longing and guilt and shame. 

All these years--all these  _ years _ she had been out in the world without him. She’d  _ saved _ him and Yennefer, he still didn’t even understand how, and now he couldn’t even find her again, couldn’t protect or help her. Beyond anything he wanted to believe that fate would bring them together again, and that he hadn’t lost her forever. But while fate had made Ciri his child of surprise twice over, it was cruel and untrustworthy too. It cared little enough for Geralt or the people he loved: it had severed him from Yennefer, from Triss, killed Regis, and decreed that Eskel would wander a Path largely separate from his. And alongside his loves had been so much grief, so much violence. So much harm had  _ already _ come to Ciri, not just before Geralt had almost died, but  _ now, _ again. At least one of the gangs of Novigrad out to get her, the Crones trying to eat her, the Wild Hunt chasing her. 

This image before him was all the intensity of seeing her again, Geralt’s whole self responding to the sight of her with a flood of feeling, but none of the  _ relief _ her actual presence would have brought. Worse than ever before the terror settled into him, the fear that he had _already_ been parted from her forever and just didn't know it yet, that he would be too late for her as he had been for so many others. 

“I feel strange, both of you staring at me bug-eyed. Is that enough?” Dudu asked, in a deeper voice than Geralt remembered. 

Even her  _ voice _ had changed. Was that the natural effect of adulthood? Or was it the long-term impact of the Witcher herbs that he and the others had given her before Triss had intervened? Was this yet another sign of his failures to anticipate her needs and care for her as she needed? 

“Yeah, plenty,” Geralt choked out. “Bad idea.”

“Not...angry with me, are ye, Geralt?” Zoltan asked, words quiet and halting in a way that Zoltan never was. He could read Geralt better than most; he had to be able to see some of the turmoil Geralt now felt. 

Geralt spared a glance at the dwarf, saw the worry in his eyes, and shook his head. 

“No,” he forced out, because anger at Zoltan was the farthest thing from his mind. At himself and the world, yes, but at Zoltan for loving him enough to want Geralt to be able to see his daughter again? No. 

Geralt had the wisdom to know that even with the way fate had tumbled him through the world, he was doubtless better-loved than any other Witcher alive. Lambert in particular never let him forget that he ought to be grateful for the privilege. 

And Geralt  _ was _ grateful. But more than anything he just wanted to know that  _ Ciri _ felt able to say the same: that even with the cruelties fate had dealt her, that she was well-loved.


	15. Dandelion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Priscilla is Black now. You're welcome. 
> 
> Also this chapter has yet more lines lifted from canon and altered to suit my purposes. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: if you've read the previous chapters, read the books, seen the show, OR played the games, you know that Dandelion is a chronic liar and philanderer. While this is not a Dandelion-negative fic, it's sure not a Dandelion stan fic either. So if you're sensitive about infidelity, fair warning, this chapter brings it into real focus how much this is a problem with Dandelion and his relationships and how it affects Geralt in particular.

Of course Dandelion managed to cock up even his own rescue. Of course! Of _ course _ he couldn’t just stay put in the armored prisoner transport vehicles with the other captives. Of course he had to contrive to get himself slung over some witch hunter’s saddle like a sack of carrots and carried off squealing into the woods. Because just allowing Geralt and Zoltan and Priscilla to rescue him in a simple fashion wouldn’t have been dramatic enough!

Geralt rode after the thrice-damned idiot, aware he was being slightly unfair and uncharitable, tracking Dandelion by the marks of horseshoes in the soft wet ground as much as the thick scent of Dandelion's perfume. That it was still so easily trackable meant he’d either _ bathed _ himself in the stuff before getting captured or that he’d somehow carried a bottle of it into his imprisonment. Both were equally likely with Dandelion. 

By the time Geralt found him, the witch hunter had barricaded himself into a small house in the woods. Listening outside the door had Geralt rolling his eyes; Dandelion clearly meant to either bribe or seduce his way out of this, whichever opportunity presented itself. With Dandelion there were even odds for both. 

Geralt didn't want to hear this particular drama unfold. So he blasted open a window (Dandelion let out a little shriek), jumped through, and beheaded the witch hunter. 

Dandelion blinked his wide blue-green eyes at Geralt. Arterial spray dripped down the chest of his doublet into his lap. 

“Really Geralt, was that necessary?” Dandelion demanded. “I was just about to have him where I wanted him! And now this prized outfit is ruined! All right, I suppose you’ve done me a favor in administering the killing blow to this beautiful brocade when it was already so battered. But honestly, _ beheading?” _

Tight-jawed, Geralt stared at the other man. Did he want to suck Dandelion’s cock? Strangle him with his own neck-cloth? Both? With a huff of deep feeling, Geralt knelt to cut the rope around Dandelion’s wrists instead.

“Oh, but it _ is _ good to see you, darling,” Dandelion sighed then, coming to his senses. He wrapped his arms around Geralt’s neck with a sweet kiss on the mouth. How his lips managed to be this silky-soft after weeks without his makeup and unguents, Geralt would never know. His own lips were nearly always chapped.

“You came to my rescue, gold eyes ablaze and silver hair flowing! How noble, how valiant.” Dandelion drew the tip of his nose flirtatiously across Geralt’s cheek before whispering in his ear, “How _ inspiring.” _

Maybe Geralt allowed himself another kiss or two (even Dandelion’s breath smelled good, had he managed to smuggle a toothbrush and anise into prison as well?) before pulling away and beginning to dismantle the barricade in front of the door. Dandelion did not help with this process, instead running his hands through his hair (greasy and unwashed, the soft gold of his locks dulled from lack of washing), preening his mustache and goatee (over-long, almost enough to wisp into his mouth, the rest of his jaw prickly and unshaven), and reordering his blood-soaked clothes as best he could. He really was rather the worse for wear. 

When they got out of the cottage, Zoltan and Priscilla were just rounding the crest of a nearby hill. 

The moment Dandelion caught sight of her he froze, glancing down at himself, clearly in distress at the idea of Priscilla seeing him this way. But she sprinted down the rest of the slope, colorful hose flashing in the late afternoon sunlight, fine braids bouncing across her shoulders as she hastened to greet him with an embrace. They crashed together, her speed almost sending him back into the cottage. 

“Priscilla!” Dandelion cried, voice breaking only a little in shock as he wrapped her in his arms. “What’re _ you _ doing here?”

She pulled back, holding him at arm’s length to look him over at close range. Her deep brown eyes narrowed. “Are you all right? You had me worried sick!”

Zoltan, meanwhile, arrived to give Dandelion a hearty slap on the ass. It drove him back into Priscilla’s arms with a yelp. 

When Geralt asked about Ciri, however, Dandelion’s face clouded into a look of confusion. 

“Ciri? I thought, seeing how _ you’re _ here--You haven’t seen her? I...well I don’t know where she is!”

The relief of saving Dandelion shriveled into nothing. Geralt’s heart fell into his boots. 

The tale Dandelion spun didn’t make him feel any better. Even accounting for Dandelion’s tendencies towards exaggeration (it could not possibly have been _that_ many of Whoreson’s men Ciri defeated), dramatic retelling (the idea that Ciri slit a man’s throat so the blood splattered onto a reverend was both too poetic and too similar to what had just happened to Dandelion with Geralt), and self-aggrandizement (that Dandelion could be in just the right place at the right time to attempt to throw himself in front of a crossbow bolt for Ciri was too improbable), the heart of it still left Geralt cold with worry. That Ciri’s abilities had become so honed meant she’d either trained with someone else or had fought so often in the intervening years that she’d been forced to learn as she went. Both options frightened Geralt--but he also couldn’t deny the surge of pride he felt at the way Dandelion described her fighting.

Dandelion was too involved in his craft to notice what Geralt was feeling, but Zoltan’s hand came to rest on the small of Geralt’s back and stayed there. His thumb rubbed back and forth. 

Priscilla didn’t seem to find Dandelion's tale any more convincing than Geralt did. As Dandelion drew to a finish, she scoffed, rising to walk away from him. 

“A splendid story, but I think I’ve had my fill of this boasting,” she grimaced. 

Geralt thought he might already love her a little. Only the best of Dandelion's lovers called him out on his clear and obvious bullshit.

As Priscilla went off to find the owners of the cottage and convince them that none of this had happened, Zoltan went with her with a glance at Geralt--clearly leaving him to get talk to Dandelion alone. 

Dandelion waved Priscilla’s criticism away. “All this has given me enough material for a _ volume _ of ballads! And this one will sell like hotcakes!” 

He looked so smug, so _ insufferable _ that Geralt couldn’t help himself. 

“That all you care about?" Geralt spat. "The _ ballads _ you can write? The _ money _ you can make? Ego swell a bit lately? Getting more and more selfish with age!" 

Dandelion always did this. This _always_ happened with him: he was callous, he was dismissive, he was self-centered to the point of being cruel. And Geralt always managed to forget just enough to go through the efforts of rescuing Dandelion from himself yet again. 

Dandelion's eyes went big and piteous and he looked wounded and shocked as he always did when called out. “What is that about?” he demanded. 

“It’s about _Ciri!”_ Geralt shouted, throwing his arms out. How could Dandelion not understand? Had he always been this selfish? What kind of idiot did Geralt have to be to love him?

But at this Dandelion just looked even more baffled. “Why would I ever worry about _ her? _ Did you not listen to what I just described, how she’s able to be in six places in the same instant and cut men to shreds? Able to vanish from in front of projectiles when they’re inconvenient for her! Hah!” he shook his head. “The girl can take care of herself, believe me.” 

Finally Dandelion stood, looking Geralt in the face--and seemed to see Geralt’s distress at last. Dandelion’s expression of wounded self-righteousness vanished, softening so that the lines around his eyes faded and he looked much younger. He laid a hand on Geralt’s chest in an obvious rapprochement. Geralt just barely restrained himself from slapping it away. 

“I know you’re her father, darling, but you must understand that she is not a child any longer,” Dandelion murmured. “She could best even you in combat. You raised her well.”

“You think magic and skill in combat is all it takes to win every time?” Geralt hissed, angrier than ever. “It takes _ luck! _ You can’t just be skilled, or powerful, you have to be lucky _ every time! _ Witchers are among the most skilled fighters in the world, and we still get mutilated and killed! Not just by monsters, but by ordinary men!”

At this point Dandelion seemed to recall just who he was talking to--and the fact that Geralt _ had _ actually been killed, or something like it, with only Ciri’s intervention to save him. 

Geralt braced himself for more argument. But Dandelion just sighed, lifting his hand from Geralt's chest to his jaw. 

“You’re right, of course you’re right,” Dandelion admitted, and Geralt sagged all at once, tension leaving him in a rush. “I’m sorry. Your love for her has always been one of your finest qualities, and I know this is hard for you.”

Dandelion always did _this,_ too. Right when Geralt found him unbearable, so stupid and awful that Geralt swore that _this_ time he’d walk away, Dandelion relented, was honest and soft and tender--and Geralt remembered why he’d gone to all the trouble. 

"Does she know about me?" Geralt asked, feeling exhausted not just physically but deep into his spirit. 

"Who, Ciri?" Dandelion asked, clearly baffled. 

Geralt jerked his head over to where Prisicilla had gone. "No, your new lady love. Does she know that you fuck me."

A quick sideways glance of Dandelion's eyes was all it took for Geralt to know: Dandelion had done it all over again. The way Dandelion's hand slid to the nape of Geralt's neck to caress him where he was sensitive just confirmed it. 

"It's early days between Priscilla and myself," Dandelion demurred, not quite answering. 

"You've been with her for months," Geralt stated.

This got a sharp little giggle from Dandelion. Now he was pointedly not meeting Geralt's eyes. "Well yes, but it's different with women, isn't it? You can't just blab this sort of thing to them willy-nilly. She may be in the theatre and have nonhuman friends, but that doesn't mean--"

"If you love her, you'll tell her," Geralt growled. "Or let me put it another way: you'll man up and tell her or _I will._ You've got a week before I intervene. She's too good to go the way all your other affairs do."

For a moment Geralt saw that he'd managed to corner Dandelion in a way he hadn't expected. He looked truly frightened, biting his lip and withdrawing his arm. As though the prospect of losing Priscilla meant something more than it normally did. 

Then Dandelion smiled. Smug and knowing. “That's as may be, but to return to our earlier topic: things will be fine with Ciri, darling. You need only wait! She’s got to come back for her magic box--the trinket that started it all.” He wiggled his eyebrows, clearly meaning to start into another story. 

Geralt let him, too tired to do anything else. But Dandelion's new information wasn't half as reassuring as he meant it to be. The revelation that Ciri had been researching curses just implied that there was something _else_ wrong in her life beyond the Wild Hunt. Dandelion waved this concern away too.

“Did she say anything else?” Geralt demanded, but Dandelion just shook his head. 

“Didn’t say much at all, to be honest.” Seating himself on a bench outside the cottage with his legs prettily crossed at the knee, he gave Geralt a look Geralt couldn’t interpret. “Ciri's no longer the little girl who used to run around Kaer Morhen. Sure, she’s still impulsive, lively, but she’s also stubborn and sulky.” He lifted an eyebrow at Geralt. “Apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Dandelion was poking at him, Geralt could tell. Trying to get him back for his ultimatum about Priscilla. Geralt couldn't find it in himself to care.

What had happened to Ciri to make her change that way? Was it Geralt’s own...death? Yen’s? Something else in the intervening years?

The return of Priscilla and Zoltan thankfully prevented Geralt from having to think about it any further.


	16. Dandelion, again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm retconning the whole Carnal Sins plotline. I hated the whole idea of it when I played the game the first time and I hated its impact on the relationship between Priscilla and Dandelion. So that's not happening! You can headcanon Geralt as finishing that quest arc later without it affecting Priscilla if you like, but I'm not going to write about or acknowledge it in any way.

The ride back to Novigrad should have been peaceful. The evening air was beautiful, cool enough for Geralt’s armor not to sit so heavy on his skin. The sunset turned the skyline rich colors not unlike Dandelion’s clothes, deep pink and bright orange with glimmers of red and blue.

Dandelion and Priscilla rode up front on horses liberated from the prison transports. Zoltan rode behind Geralt on Roach. Geralt made a point of falling far enough behind that he didn’t have to hear whatever Dandelion and Priscilla were talking about. 

“You all right, lad?” Zoltan asked. 

Normally Geralt would have just ignored the question, either by physically walking away or changing the subject. But he was a captive audience now. And he knew better than to try to worm away from this with Zoltan. 

“No,” he admitted. Even having said it, however, he had no idea what else to say. The silence stretched till Zoltan gave up on him and prompted more. 

“Okay, well, admitting it is a start. This about Dandelion or Ciri? Or both.”

“I thought--” Geralt began to say and then cut himself off with a shake of his head. Admitting it made him sound too silly. 

But Zoltan just pushed a thumb into the cracks between plates of Geralt’s armor, digging until Geralt clutched his arm to drag it away. Geralt sighed. 

“I thought Dandelion would know where Ciri was. I thought the search would be over and I could just go to her. I got my hopes up.”

“What was so hard about just saying that?” Zoltan asked. It was a fair question. 

“Because I also somehow thought Dandelion would be different this time.” Geralt shook his head. “You’re right, him being in love with Priscilla is just him being in love with all of his own best qualities. Charming, creative, witty, a beautiful singer. She deserves better.”

“Oh, laddie,” Zoltan sighed. “It ever occurred to you that you deserve better too?”

This got the dismissive snort it deserved. It had occurred to Geralt on average once a day for the last few years whenever he was around Dandelion. That still hadn’t stopped Geralt from going back for more. 

“Learning my lesson once I’ve been hurt has never been my strong suit,” Geralt bit out. “Just like honesty isn’t Dandelion’s.”

That even the loyal Zoltan couldn’t disagree with Geralt on this was telling. 

When they returned to the Rosemary and Thyme, Dandelion went right to work. He penned and sent off a whole stack of letters, daubing each with a thumbprint of his perfume. Zoltan did Dandelion the favor of finding a messenger to deliver them all. Priscilla stayed for dinner, and by the end of it, if she hadn’t already won Geralt over to her side, she would have by then. 

She loved Dandelion, that much was clear. But she had absolutely no patience with his grandiosity or his bullshit. Watching Dandelion just _ take _ it every time she cut down his white lies and pried honesty out of him awoke something in Geralt. He’d given up on reforming Dandelion; the best he’d ever hoped for was managing the size of the disaster. But Priscilla...Geralt allowed himself in a happy daydream in which Dandelion changed because of his relationship with her. Grew, finally. 

But it wasn’t fair to expect her to fix anyone. Doing so would be a full-time job in Dandelion's case, and one for which she was neither paid nor compensated. So Geralt gave up on the dream as quick as he’d formed it, and instead marked off a few more hours until he made good on his ultimatum. 

Dandelion avoided him that night, riding off with Priscilla instead. 

The next step in finding Ciri was to purchase a berth on a ship going to Skellige. But finding one proved difficult. Even when Geralt located Sukrus and asked for his help, the captains he knew of had already departed and would not be back for a month, if they returned at all. 

So two days passed, then five, still with no leads. Dandelion returned from the theatre all warm smiles and warmer compliments...and despite himself, Geralt let himself be led into perdition yet again. 

It began with reminiscing about their years together. There had been rather more than a decade, now, and Geralt couldn’t help his pleasure at remembering the good times. There had been so many. 

Then came Dandelion’s hand on the back of Geralt’s neck, thumb caressing the fine hairs along his nape. That was innocent enough, and it felt lovely, sending tingles all down Geralt's spine till they pooled between his legs. They stared into the fire together, warmed by both the flames and the strong cherry cordial Dandelion had dug up from the store-room. Dandelion leaned close and then closer. 

By the time he’d moved into Geralt’s lap, tugging Geralt's hair loose from its tail and pulling on it in just the way Geralt liked before he sealed their mouths together...Geralt no longer cared enough to say no. 

_Soon,_ he told himself. Soon he’d tell Priscilla. 

Geralt still remembered his first time with Dandelion. Dandelion had destroyed his expectations so easily. Geralt had never met anyone like the bard before, never been the object of that kind of attention. Even their first time together had been good in a way that had reshaped Geralt’s expectations of everyone after. Geralt had been with many others before, of course. He'd had been around three-quarters of a century by the time Dandelion got him out of his armor and into bed. And many of his prior encounters had been good. It didn’t take much to make most Witchers come, after all, and Geralt had figured that any orgasm in company was better than none. 

But Dandelion had a running patter with his partners as he fucked them: _ Darling you look gorgeous like this. Tell me what would make it even better. Like this? Perfect, the gods blessed my bed with you. Look at you. Do you like that? Oh you do, I can see that you do, the way you squirm and arch. Maybe you want it even harder. Yes? Excellent. Oh, you take me so well. Will you come just from this? Or do you want my hand around your throat, your prick? Look how wet you are, darling, all for me. I want you so wet your thighs slide together-- _

Many lovers were afraid to ask for instructions lest it they discover they were getting it wrong or the asking betrayed that they weren’t all-knowing. Before Dandelion, Geralt himself had been afraid to do so. He’d fumbled his way through most encounters, relying on his partners to guide him where necessary and just doing his best to pick people who seemed unshy. But Dandelion had no such hesitance, and had instead developed a way of asking everything every step of the way that just made it all _more_ erotic. _ He _ never had to live in doubt about whether he was a good lover. He _ knew _ he was, because he found out every time with every new partner exactly how to get it right and then he did just that. 

Geralt could never hope to imitate it, not if his life depended on it, but it had at least taught him that he could ask. Bluntly, badly, with none of the blissful filth that Dandelion wielded with the same ease as his lute. But at least Geralt had begun to ask after that. 

After so many years together, sleeping with Dandelion made almost everyone else pale by comparison. 

He still asked, every time, every step of the way--but now he came into every tryst armed with such knowledge and familiarity that Geralt nearly drowned in it. If Dandelion was good even with strangers, then his skill with those he truly knew was unparalleled. 

Dandelion fucked like he composed his best ballads, with a perfect sense of rhythm and timing. He knew how to start slow, wooing his audience into participation by repeating a theme till they latched on. Once he had people humming along, he changed the tune, brought in something new, building the tension till every line and note became necessary and eagerly-awaited. And then came the climax, bringing it all together. 

That night in one of the upstairs room of the Rosemary and Thyme, Geralt howled into the mattress. He could barely breathe. Dandelion had him by the hair, his grip a constant aching pressure that kept Geralt from just hiding his face in the sheets. Every thrust rubbed Geralt’s cock into the silk coverlet Dandelion had laid down just for this purpose at the same time as it drove Dandelion’s beautiful prick so deep Geralt thought he might choke on it. What had started off sweet for Geralt’s first, second, even third climax was now fast and brutal. He was nearly raw, swollen inside and oversensitive outside from being hard for so long--which just meant that every touch, every movement burned along his nerves. 

When Dandelion finished with him--two more blinding orgasms down the line--it took Geralt a full hour to rise from bed. Dandelion had retreated downstairs to attend to the hundred and one things the Rosemary and Thyme needed in order to become a functioning brothel again. Or cabaret, or whatever Dandelion intended to do with it. 

Geralt’s limbs were slow, moving like the flow of honey. He shook all over. His head felt like it had been filled with lead. It took another quarter of an hour just to wash himself enough to be able to don clothes without soiling them. 

He couldn't go on like this. Part of him knew exactly why this had happened _tonight,_ and why it had been _so_ good: Dandelion was trying to get him not to make good on his ultimatum. 

The bite of the fall air woke Geralt from his stupor. He got Roach from the stables, mounted up with a barely-suppressed gasp as his hindquarters contacted the saddle, and then rode across town at a slow canter until he reached the theatre. 

Geralt found the troupe in the middle of a rehearsal. As _The Doppler’s Salvation_ had been so popular its first performance, more had followed. As Geralt couldn't be there every time, they had cast someone new in Geralt’s role now, of course: an older gentleman with dark skin but hair every bit as dramatic and white as Geralt’s own. 

Geralt watched until they finished the first act, then drew Priscilla aside. Thankfully she acquiesced without much bother, proceeding with Geralt into one of the private rooms of the nearby building. 

“Has Dandelion talked to you yet?” Geralt asked, now feeling like he was sweating guilt out of his pores like toxins after he overdosed on potions. He stuck to the insides of his clothes and could smell his own stress.

“He talks to me a great deal all the time,” Priscilla replied, pouring herself a glass of watered-down wine and taking a drink. “But it sounds like you have a specific topic in mind.”

For a long moment Geralt stared at the wall. He didn’t want to do this--not to himself, not to her, not to Dandelion. But he was so tired of the ways this went. He was tired of Dandelion wrecking every relationship this exact way. He was tired being one of the many things which wrecked them. 

“About the fact that he’s fucking me and half the rest of Novigrad,” Geralt said at last. He didn’t know how to sugarcoat it. And there was nothing she could do to hurt him physically if she found the idea disgusting. 

Turning from where she’d been fussing over the wine jug, she fixed Geralt with a narrow-eyed stare. Then she shook her head with a snort, leaning against the cabinets, cup in hand. 

“I confess, I am surprised that it’s _ you,” _ she replied. “I wouldn’t have imagined you to be his type. And no, he hasn’t told me himself. But I’m not an idiot. I’ve performed in almost every major city from the southernmost reaches of Nilfgaard all the way up through western Povis, and I’ve heard of Dandelion’s misdeeds for years. The story of how he jilted the Duchess of Toussaint and nearly got himself hanged for it has spread especially far, though he likes to pretend that’s not the case.”

Geralt stared at her. Of all the responses he’d expected, this hadn’t been one of them. He had honestly wondered how so many of Dandelion’s lovers hadn’t heard the stories (right up until they did hear, of course) but he hadn’t encountered anything quite like _ this _ before. 

“You know that he’s unfaithful?” Geralt asked, prodding at the concept because he couldn’t quite believe it. 

Priscilla gave Geralt a pitying look. 

“I know that he’s _ Dandelion. _ He’s a bit of a fool--well, no, I take that back, he is a very _ great _ fool for trying to deceive an actress and a storyteller as skilled as I am. But I also know he truly loves me in his own idiosyncratic way.”

“But...but you deserve better,” Geralt floundered, so lost now that all he could do was echo what he’d said before to Zoltan. 

“Of course I do,” Priscilla agreed. “And I will accept it once Dandelion either becomes that better thing or someone superior arrives to take his place. In the meantime, he encourages my work as well as being a very serviceable bedmate, and if he doesn’t completely botch his efforts with the brothel, he will soon have a comfortable living with which to support us both. There are worse ways to spend my time.”

Geralt wilted. All his agonizing this whole week had been for nothing. All his faith in Dandelion had been for nothing too. 

Priscilla laid a comforting hand on Geralt’s arm. 

“Did you _ not _ know he was unfaithful? Was it news to you?”

Dragging a hand down his face and digging into the scar above his eye where it still hurt and itched sometimes, Geralt shook his head with a bitter laugh. 

“No, I knew. I’ve known since I first met him. I rescued him from being gelded by the angry brothers of a girl he’d gotten in a family way.”

“Ahh,” Priscilla said, as though this suddenly clarified a great deal. “So you’ve known and have been hoping this whole time for him to change. How long has it been? Five years? More? The way Dandelion talks about you implies he’s known you for a very long time indeed.”

Geralt actually forced himself to count for the first time. The number he came up with was much bigger than he wanted. He had known it to be at least a decade, but--

“Seventeen years,” he sighed. “He was twenty-six when I met him. I was almost three times his age and he still managed to sweep me off my feet.”

Priscilla very politely did not point out how thick someone had to be to maintain hope for change after _that_ length of time without any sign of it. 

“I knew Witchers were long-lived, but that is still--well anyway. Please tell me that you have not been faithful to _ him _ all that time,” was what she actually said. “Did he make up the whole story about you and the sorceress?”

With a snort, Geralt shook his head. “No. I have not been faithful to him, either. And while I still wish to wring his neck for spreading my private affairs to the whole world--thanks very much for doing the same, by the way--I never expected to be his one and only. I just wanted him to be _ honest _ with people. But he won’t do even that if he thinks it will keep him from getting his dick wet. I mean--sorry,” Geralt apologized, realizing too late that he was in the company of a lady. 

Her dark skin gleamed in the fading daylight, the intricate twists of her braids like the filigree of a crown. She smiled. 

“You’re very sweet, aren’t you,” she remarked, to Geralt’s startlement. He blinked owlishly at her. “I can see why he’s so fond of you. I knew you were close, that much is obvious from the way that he lies extensively about rescuing you and doing you favors, and writes endless songs about your love life and adventures. But his fascination with you makes even more sense now that I know you’re lovers.”

Geralt grimaced. 

“I can only hope that if things go terribly wrong with Ciri, that he won’t write some tragic ballad about it that will be recited to my face everywhere I go,” Geralt confessed. “It’s bad enough that my problems with Yennefer are now known so widely that strangers will ask me about it.”

“Ah, darling,” she grinned, laughing now, and hearing that endearment in her mouth did something strange to Geralt’s mind. “If you do not wish to be sung about, you could try being a little more ordinary. But I apologize for my contribution and I will bear that in mind. It’s not often that the subjects of my heroic ballads are still alive to hear them.”

Afterward Geralt returned to the Rosemary and Thyme a little lighter. He slept deeply that night, in sheets redolent with the scents of his and Dandelion’s pleasure. 

The next morning he found a ship for Skellige.


	17. Yennefer, a Second Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More dialog partially lifted from the game and altered to suit my purposes!
> 
> NOTE: I love Yennefer as a character. She's complex and messy and wonderful. I'd even be delighted with a proper romance between her and Geralt. But a proper romance is not what we get in this game, in my opinion. They never resolve any of their disagreements and their interactions often betray disrespect and profound anger with one another. Further, the fact that she repeatedly reads his mind without asking his permission is...disturbing to me. That is a profound violation of self that the game just seems to brush off as "Haha Geralt has a pet peeve, what an oversensitive grumpy dope."
> 
> If I were writing a Yennefer-centric longfic, I'd find a way to resolve all this shit for them, but that's not what this fic is. I'm banging out chapters at a super-rapid pace as I replay the game. So while this fic will end up with Yennefer happily in love with someone, I'll spoil you now and say that it isn't Geralt. Sorry.

Salt crusted on Geralt’s clothing, armor, blades, and skin. Which meant everything he owned would need to be cleaned thoroughly as soon as possible. Even the idea of that much effort had him tired--or maybe that was the battering he’d taken being thrown overboard and swimming to shore. But that’s what he got for coming to Skellige in the middle of a war with Nilfgaard. Nearly every ship crossing from the continent to the island nation was attacked. It had been foolish to hope that his would be the exception. 

The hilly slog into Kaer Trolde with wet boots and wet clothing in late fall didn’t improve his mood any. He shivered the whole way, toes squelching and pack weighing an extra ton from being so waterlogged. Some Witchers, like Eskel, were so skilled with Igni that they could use it to dry out damp clothing. But Geralt had never mastered the trick. Many were the times he had bemoaned this personal failing and he bemoaned it again now. 

Arriving in town to find it in the middle of a state funeral only cemented his grim mood. The streets stood empty while people jostled and wept on the docks, piers creaking under the massed weight. A ship already aflame drifted out to sea. 

Geralt almost walked past the congregation before he stopped, realizing that the funeral might be for someone he knew. For several long seconds he stood, indecisive, before with a silent groan at his own damned maudlin nature, he went to see who the funeral was for. What did he even plan to do if it was Crach an Craite? Pray to the gods for good treatment of his friend's soul? _Cry?_ Not likely. 

But despite his pressing need for new clothes and food and a bath, Geralt shouldered his way toward the front. Catching sight of Crach right near an elderly druid--who might have been Ermion?--relieved him a little. He turned around, then, fully meaning to find the nearest inn and pay whatever they asked for hot food and a hot bath, when his eyes slid over a slender figure in black and white clothing and recognition dawned. 

Glancing down at himself as though the view would be any better than it had been a minute ago, Geralt resigned himself to looking his worst in front of Yennefer yet again. A small part of his brain supplied that he could theoretically just walk away right now instead of pushing through the crowd to get to her. But also he _ couldn’t _ do that. 

When he drew close her nostrils flared and her head turned, eyes scanning the crowd for the source of whatever the bad smell was and unerringly fixing on him. Something in him shriveled up at the blank, unsurprised look she gave him.

“You look beautiful,” he offered, trying to channel some of Dandelion’s confidence and utterly failing. The words came out apologetic. 

Yet, one corner of Yennefer’s mouth curled up. Probably just at the ridiculousness of him attempting to flirt with her _now_ of all times, surrounded by mourners while he stank and looked like waterlogged hell. 

“Thank you. Nice to see you again,” she murmured. 

A tiny bloom of hope started somewhere deep in Geralt. She could have dismissed him, not even responded. Geralt had half-expected her to do so even if he’d shown up in a better state. 

The wind slapped a damp strand of his own hair into his eye and carried the thrilling cloud of her perfume to him. Lilac and gooseberries, as always. 

“You smell wonderful,” his mouth said with no permission from his brain. 

Her hand rose to her mouth, pressing there for a moment as if she were suppressing a laugh. 

The tiny bloom of hope shriveled up. 

“Geralt, we’re at a funeral,” she whispered, keeping her eyes turned forward. 

“You smell wonderful at this funeral,” Geralt concluded helplessly. 

This got no reply. Out of mortified desperation, trying to distract himself, he listened to the druid talking about the afterlife--and realized that this was no ordinary funeral, not even for a clan leader. This was _ King Bran’s _ funeral.

Geralt hadn’t known King Bran very well. But the fact that this was the funeral of the nation’s king meant there would not only be a wake, but a massive one, with all the clan leaders and their families present. There would be political maneuvering, old rivalries erupting, and everyone puffing up themselves and their allies in preparation for the trials of kingship. The candidates would step forward. 

And Yen would attend the wake because she was a visiting dignitary. And because she cared about politics, even the ones out here in the middle of the ocean. 

Geralt did not want to go to a wake, and especially not this one. But he desperately, hungrily wanted to see Yen, and as he was here looking for Ciri, asking Crach an Craite if Ciri had sought help from him would be a good place to start. 

Another waft of Yen’s perfume hit Geralt and left him dizzy with hopeless, mortifying desire. They hadn’t seen one another in two years aside from that brief encounter in White Orchard, fleeing from the Wild Hunt together, and then parting ways awkwardly in Vizima. He wanted a solitary cottage by the sea where he could lock himself away with her there for a whole week. He wanted to bury his face between her legs until she forgot what a blasted idiot he was, until his cheeks and mouth and beard and hair and neck all smelled of her. Then he wanted to never wash again. 

At least the miserable cold and damp and his own bruised exhaustion kept him from getting hard at the thought. 

“Come with me to the wake?” he half-begged. Anything to spend time with her. Even attending an event like that. 

“Gladly,” she replied, and Geralt perked up again. When she leaned close, mouth almost touching his ear, a shiver went through him that had nothing to do with the icy breeze. “Feasts in Skellige--so predictable. Slobbering drunks, brazen boasting, and the inevitable rows that result.”

He couldn’t help snorting at the irony of a Sorceress saying that. “Yeah, nothing like the banquets _ mages _ attend. Remember the one on Thanedd?”

A half-second later he winced as he realized what he’d said. _ Why _ had he brought that up? It had been an all-out civil war and many of her fellow mages and sorceresses had died! In the years since, life had universally become worse for magic users anywhere.

“How _ could _ I forget?” Yen said, voice still low but now dripping with sarcasm. “I also remember _ excruciatingly _ well what happened after the banquet.”

When everyone had died, yeah. _ Well done Geralt, _ he told himself. His hands flexed in his gloves, too sticky from seawater to tell if he was sweating. 

He should have stuck to just complimenting her. _Anything_ other than bringing up a damned massacre both of them and Ciri had been present for. 

How tragic was it that so many of their parenting experiences had been like that? More signs that fate was a bastard and cared not a whit for his wellbeing or that of anyone else. 

Out of self-defense against his own embarrassment, Geralt went back to imagining a little cottage by the sea, well-insulated and warm, and the both of them naked. If he was good enough with his mouth, she might comb her nails along his scalp, grasp fistfuls of his hair, and let him jerk off at her feet. Or she could tie him down to the bed. He always had a length of rope in his pack for attaching monster trophies to his saddle. If he were tied down, she could do whatever she liked. Ride him, or play with his cock till he was hot-faced and desperate, or slip her slender fingers inside him till his cock got as wet as she did. 

“Mm, that one,” she said in a warm undertone, taking the half step backwards and to the side to close to space between them, her hand brushing against his and her hair falling against his shoulder. “That one with the rope, that seems interesting.”

For a moment Geralt glanced around, trying to figure out what funeral attendee she meant, until he realized that she was _ in his damned head again. _ Gooseflesh ran down him in a wave and his stomach turned over in sudden nausea. He pulled away from her. 

“Stop reading my mind!” he hissed, just barely remembering to keep his voice down. 

Her face turned toward him, expression as innocent as ever as she blinked wide, purple eyes at him. 

“Something to hide?”

“Don’t like _secrets?”_ he snarled, because she was _made_ of them, plans within plans within plans. She was so skilled at plots and intrigue and deception, everything he hated. 

But that was stupid too. Who was he to get angry? He’d hidden the biggest secret of all from her for so long: his last wish from the djinn, the spell with which he’d bound their lives together. 

“No,” she sighed, sounding truly sad, and turned away from him. 

His mind remained blank for the rest of the funeral, empty of everything but his physical discomfort. His chest ached. He couldn't feel his hands or feet or face.

Perhaps she took pity on him afterward, or perhaps she simply required him for something at the wake. Either way, once the crowds began to disperse, she wrapped one small hand through his arm and led him to the local inn and her set of rooms inside it. 

Yen marched in, opening a chest and pulling out fresh clothes for him. They were in the Skellige fashion, black fabric embroidered with white to match her own garb. 

Bafflement and shocked pleasure rose up to fill the blank of his mind. As she laid the outfit on the bed, he realized that she had spent money on him, anticipating his arrival, and not only had she bought him clothes, she had gone out of her way to find garb which would match hers. Anyone looking at them together would see a united front. 

Maybe she hadn't changed, maybe they'd still fight, but that was fine. He could deal with that if he only got to be with her. He stared at the tunic, breeches, and boots, trying to find words to express his relief and delight.

“I’ll have the innkeep get hot water for your bath,” she told him, and left. 

Well, his declarations could wait, then. 

Now in a mood to be obedient, Geralt searched the room for a towel, found one, stripped off, wrapped himself in it, and then wandered the space, looking at her belongings. She had brought enough that she had clearly intended to stay a long time. Whole shelves of books, chests of clothes, makeup and perfume, her megascope...

...and the stuffed unicorn, standing beside the bathtub. 

Geralt stared at it, confronted by its dead-eyed stare. The craftsman who’d made it hadn’t just wanted to use glass, apparently, because the eyes were mother-of-pearl to match its horn. That made it even eerier. He could no longer recall exactly where or when she had acquired it, but he vividly remembered the time he’d torn a leg off the thing. She’d had him tied over its back, face-down and spread-eagle, whipping his shoulders and thighs till he’d pulled too hard at his bonds while squirming. The whole massive thing had toppled to the ground with him under it. 

It wasn’t a bad memory though. 

Its presence here implied that Yen had not only kept this monstrosity and fixed it, but even had it shipped here in anticipation of meeting him. 

A warm curl of want went through him, plumping him up beneath his towel.

He looked at the unicorn again. He smiled. Then he dropped his towel onto the bed and stroked himself until he was fully hard, determined to greet Yen properly. 

Which was, of course, when the innkeeper walked in holding a great kettle of steaming water. He stopped at the sight of Geralt, who snatched his hand away from his groin. The innkeep seemed to take in the awful scars and Geralt’s tumescent state with no more than a mild stare and raised eyebrows. 

“You’re the feller the bath is for, then,” the man said with admirable calm. “Least the water won’t get cold by the time you use it, eh?”

Yen walked in at that point, saw Geralt, and smiled, a look of pure smug delight. 

Well at least he’d amused her. There was that. 

After the hot water made it into the tub, the innkeeper escaped the room, and Geralt made it into the hot water, Yen seated herself in a chair by his side, watching him wash with the same satisfied gaze Emhyr might give to the conquered North once he had it. She didn’t even need to touch him for him to know that absolutely, unequivocally, his balls belonged to her.

The relief was almost enough to drown him in a foot and a half of water. It meant so many things all at once: that he’d made the right choice with Triss, with Corinne. That his strongest possible ally in finding Ciri would be by his side. That after all this was over, he could orient his life around Yen once more. Perhaps even her and Ciri together. Perhaps then he wouldn't feel as lost and alone as he had in the years since they had separated. 

That Yen interrogated him about the state of his search for Ciri while he bathed was less erotic, but that was fine too. He liked that she was holding the important things in mind. 

When she had combed his hair and beard and dressed him to her exacting specifications, she nodded her approval. 

“You look quite dashing,” she declared, and the familiar curl of want went through him again. 

“And you’re...dazzling.”

“You know, I really missed your candidness,” she said. She clearly meant ‘you total lack of social acumen,’ but at least she’d missed him. “I’m glad we’re here together.”

“Me too,” he replied with complete honesty. He’d been angry at her earlier, but that was earlier. She'd just wanted to know what he was thinking. It was fine. 

Before they left, she strapped a leather satchel to her hip, large enough to fit several books. It ruined the line of her dress and thus left Geralt so puzzled that he almost asked her about it. But, he supposed, if she wanted to explain herself she would, so he said nothing. 

Once they entered the great hall, Geralt was rapidly drawn into conversation with Cerys an Craite. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been at that awkward, leggy age when her limbs had grown up but her torso hadn’t. Now, though, she was a tall warrior with a scarred face and a knowing smile--and also, apparently, in the running to become king. 

Talking to her made Geralt so wistful for Ciri that it took him several minutes to notice Yen had disappeared. He scanned the hall but could not find her anywhere. 

Anxiety built in him the longer her absence lasted. Had he bored her? Already said something to upset her again? Embarrassed her somehow? Would she come to her senses now, burn the unicorn to ash, and tell him she wanted him for nothing but his utility in finding Ciri?

But no, a few minutes later she reappeared, seating herself by his side with a smug look. The satchel at her hip thunked against the bench as she sat.

Probably she had just needed to piss. Gods, he was worse than a child barely out of diapers, frightened every time she so much as left his sight. 

After the wake they departed for Yen’s rooms again. 

“So, about your idea with the ropes,” Yen purred, and Geralt went hot under his clothes. 

By the time they fell asleep together that night, he smelled of her. Merely breathing reassured him that she wanted him. 

He slept deep and dreamed of eating tart green gooseberries, their insides wet on his fingers and mouth.


	18. Yennefer, a Third Time

After starting his morning in the best possible way (with Yennefer and a soaked beard) Geralt headed up to the site of the cataclysm with her. 

Calling it ‘the site of the cataclysm’ sounded so dramatic. He’d seen craters where fire elementals had unleashed their wrath and stone rings where earth elementals had heaved up boulders from beneath the ground. Probably this would only something unimpressive like that. 

The ride out into the forest was so pleasant that it grew impossible to believe there was anything at all bad at the end of it. They wound along coastal paths together on horseback, sharing all the latest gossip about their fellow Sorceresses and Witchers and other shared acquaintances. The rich green of the foothills and the bright white of the peaks shone in the daylight, lancing down to hit the earth from between scattered clouds. 

(Geralt neatly elided all mention of sleeping with anyone else. Yen had never wished to know about his affairs, and only tolerated him sleeping with men because she didn’t view it as a threat. He could only hope that this time she’d listened to him when he told her to stop reading his mind.) 

But when they arrived, Geralt saw that he had, if anything, underestimated the import of a word like ‘cataclysm.’ As he dismounted from his horse where the path ended in a small encampment, the ground fell away downhill into a massive scene like something out of a nightmare. Charred trees lay shattered as though struck by lightning. The undergrowth and even the leaf mould had burned away, leaving nothing but ash and blackened dirt. And the earth itself lay all tumbled and broken-open, rocks blown apart into rubble in great veins that wound toward some horrible central point far away. 

No birds sang, and the wind had nothing to rustle through. It was eerily silent.

Ermion and a cluster of other druids moved through the camp at the edge of the tortured landscape. And when Ermion caught sight of Yennefer, he immediately launched into a screeching tirade. 

Geralt waded in on her behalf, because of course he did. He tried to reason with Ermion, who had taught Ciri once and might thus have some fondness left for her father. But Ermion was so enraged with Yennefer, ranting about some myth that Geralt couldn’t make any sense of, that Geralt could barely get a word in edgewise. 

Which was when the sky opened, a whole host of lightning bolts struck the already barren land behind them--and Geralt realized he hadn’t seen Yen for several minutes. 

“She’s done it!” Ermion cried. “She’s donned the Mask of Ourborous! She’ll kill us all, that daft witch, and it’s already begun!”

As Geralt sprinted down along the charred ground, a dull resignation stole over him. Yennefer had done things like this so many times: kept her plans from him, set him up to disguise her actions, and then gone behind his back to do something both he and others would never allow if asked. The familiarity of this sat like a hard-baked knot in his chest. All he could hope was that Ermion was wrong about Yennefer having released some variety of apocalypse, because having _this_ be how things ended for him, for  _ them, _ was just too awful. 

When he reached Yennefer he found her standing in a small circle of steaming ground, holding a glowing wooden mask, and looking smug as could be. Rain began to pour down on them, and a howling wind tore at their hair. 

“Ermion says you’ve just caused a natural disaster, and it seems like he’s damn well right!” Geralt barked at her. 

“Then it’s a good thing he’s here,” Yen replied, unrepentant. “He can manage the weather. He is a druid, after all.”

The Mask, she explained, allowed her to see echoes of the past. If Ciri had been here, then Yen would be able to see it. Had already seen some of it.

So Geralt swallowed his rage and disappointment and followed her around as she used the Mask to look at thin air. His foul mood was not improved any by her describing to him that Ciri had indeed been here with a companion, had been attacked by a whole group of people, and then fled to Velen through a portal. 

That her portal led to Velen meant that all this uproar had resulted in no new lead whatsoever. Geralt had already been to Velen and Ciri had long since left. 

Maybe Dandelion had been right. Maybe he ought to have stayed in Novigrad and simply waited in the hope that she would come back for the phylactery. Maybe he should never have come to Skellige. Maybe he should never have returned to Yennefer's side. 

But when Ermion told them that the Wild Hunt had been in Skellige twice recently, Yen insisted they examine the other location. For lack of anything else to do, Geralt followed her. 

When that location turned out to contain nothing more than an ugly curse, a lovely walled garden the locals considered sacred, and a stinking corpse, Geralt’s hopes fell even further. 

If anyone had asked him (which no one did) he would have said this was as bad as his mood could get. But h e would have been wrong. Yen proposed  _ necromancy _ to reanimate the corpse and interrogate it. And not just proposed it, she _did it_ despite his protests. She tortured answers out of the corpse while it screamed in agony, and Geralt watched, helpless, as the life bled out of the beautiful garden, fed into the corpse to keep it talking. By the time the whole garden was dead, dessicated and withered, the corpse offered up only a weak lead.

Geralt felt numb, as though she had drawn the life out of him instead. 

Funny, he thought to himself. He had a good memory, or at least one no worse than most. And yet he still forgot, over and over, what it was actually like being by Yen’s side. She got results--even when the price came from her own flesh, she got results. But why did it so often turn out like this? With a blast radius and things so much worse than when they'd started?

If she felt any shame at what she’d done in tormenting the dead and utterly destroying a sacred site, she did not show it. She even had the gall to ask him for a favor afterward. 

Geralt felt the shame _for_ her. It was so potent that he turned from her, mounting his horse and riding away. 

He had agreed to help her anyway. She hated to ask for aid, and asking for it _then,_ at that moment when he was already so miserable with her, must have cost her something dear. 

He knew he couldn't run forever. Probably not even for long. Even if he were to find a ship, leave Skellige, what was a few years of separation in lives as long as theirs? She was his one true love, his destiny. And now, of all times--t hey needed to plan what to do next, how to find Ciri. 

So he would crawl back yet again. When he was calmer, when anger had faded to fear and regret.  When his own wish pulled him back to her side. 


	19. Jorund

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jorund is Black now. You're welcome.

Sitting in his own thoughts proved unbearable. So Geralt sought out towns, picking up contracts. (He tried not to notice how he only selected ones he thought he could finish quickly.) 

A posting asking for a Witcher’s help with some sort of ‘phantom’ led him to a nearby inn. When he entered, however, he was greeted by a pair of the rudest Skelligers he’d ever met. Given the state of Skelligan manners in general, it was an accomplishment for any to stand out this way. Geralt barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes at their claims that he was weak and cowardly. Clearly the fools had no understanding of what his pendant meant, or the two swords. They were angry at the world and spoiling for a fight, pressing closer and closer into his space as their volume raised. 

Just before either of them could escalate this to the point where Geralt had to defend himself, a big man with long locs intervened. 

“Whosoever denies shelter to a traveler disgraces himself and brings shame on his clan,” the man growled, placing his body squarely between Geralt and the other two. The look of sheer paternal disappointment in his eyes would have silenced less idiotic men, but these two were apparently immune to both common decency and guilt-tripping. 

Yet despite their denial of his words, the dark-skinned man seemed to hold some sway over them anyway, because after a few more insults and threats, the two fools stomped out, slamming the door behind them. 

After introducing himself as Jorund, the man invited Geralt to sit with him. 

Within a few minutes of speaking to him, it became clear that Jorund was one of that rare breed of men who truly believed in being generous and looking after the wellbeing of others. He had not only protected Geralt, he had been the one to post the contract, seeking to keep his fellow townspeople from harm. 

Geralt had meant to take this contract regardless, but now he was even more willing.  So he rode out in the rain in search of the haunted lighthouse. 

The curse he found there made his skin crawl. So many had died dashed upon the rocks that the wraiths rose from the ground in droves, whole ship crews together. The murdered dead attacked him blindly, agonized and enraged beyond all reason by their still-living perpetrator, their ghostly hands reaching for his still-warm flesh. 

And when the rocky cliffs lay silent again, and Geralt had furiously told the lighthouse keeper to flee before Geralt slew him for his crimes, Geralt sat among the green grass and blooming flowers for a long time. Below him the ocean beat upon the shipwrecks. Day by day they would wear away, broken apart piece by piece, until in the end it would be as though the vile deed had never occurred at all.

The world was a harsh and terrible place and the lives in it often short and painful. This Geralt knew. Often the Path took him into the heart of true horrors, to injustices so heinous that even the dead found no respite and screamed their misery and despair. 

Compared to that, what right did he have to be angry? What had Yen done but what was necessary? Others might  _ say _ they would do anything for their children, and even Geralt wished to believe that of himself, but Yen was the one who  _ actually did it. _ So why had he left her side when every moment apart might be their last among the living? 

He could still feel his anger and shame like a bruise. If he pushed on it, it would hurt. But only a fool hurt himself and then complained of being wounded. 

When he finally rose his knees complained, creaking and cold from the damp earth. 

The walk from the lighthouse to the town seemed to take a very, very long time. 

He should return to Yen, he told himself. No matter how difficult it could be to accept her the way she was, there was no point in fighting against one of the few good things in his life. He simply needed to be more patient. 

But when Jorund rewarded Geralt not only with his promised payment but a fine bottle of mead to share between them, Geralt let himself stay. Just a little longer, he told himself. Just one bottle.

The strong mead and his own shame and confusion loosened his tongue and he told Jorund of contracts he'd taken all over the continent, curses like the one he'd lifted here. One story led into the next, and Jorund listened with every appearance of enjoyment. 

Perhaps the drink loosened Geralt's hold on his wits as well. Normally Geralt waited for some sign of interest, or at least a demonstration that a man might be like him, before he attempted any approach. But this time he was reckless.  Jorund had just begun to voice his hope that Cerys an Craite would be the next king of Skellige when Geralt laid a hand over the other man’s. Jorund stopped mid-sentence, looking at Geralt in surprise. 

“You wanna fuck me?” Geralt asked. 

A second passed, then two, as they stared at each other. Then Jorund glanced around the inn, checking to see if anyone had overheard. Luckily, everyone else in the alehouse was at the other end of the long room, engaged in or spectating a game with dice and daggers. No one was listening. 

“You’re a bold one,” Jorund replied at last in a rumbling murmur. 

Geralt shrugged. He didn’t take his hand from Jorund’s or his eyes away from his face. 

“This is not the place,” Jorund concluded at last. He stood, pulling his hand away. The absence left Geralt’s palm cold. “Come.”

Jorund lived on the edge of town in a cosy cottage with a grass roof and vines growing up the walls. He unlatched the door, leaving it open to let in light as he bent to fetch flint and tinder and a candle from the top of a barrel by the door. 

Before he had time to assemble the tinder, Geralt opened his palm and the candle ignited. Jorund looked at him in startlement, clearly not having expected this small magic. But he took the lit candle, using it to light an oil lamp across the room, and then shut the door behind them. 

“What gave me away?” he asked at last, seating himself with a thump upon the single heavy wooden chair beside a small table. “I wouldn’t have thought I gave any sign.”

Smiling to himself at his own strange luck, Geralt shook his head. 

“Nothing gave you away. I just figured why not try.”

Jorund snorted, which was exactly the response this deserved. 

“Plenty of reason not to try, friend. But perhaps a Witcher has less to fear, with two swords and no home to be tied to.”

Geralt shrugged. That was as good an explanation as any. 

Some of Jorund’s slow calm wore away, then, and he rubbed his hands together, stroking a thumb right where Geralt’s had lain. 

“I haven’t ever really done this,” Jorund admitted. “Only with women, and only a few times. I don’t know what to do.”

Well that was fine. Geralt had done this so many times that he had lost count and begun forgetting names and faces. Many of the people he’d fucked were dead by now. So he just smiled and began the process of unbuckling his armor. He set it piece by piece in front of the door, where any attempt to open it would create an almighty clatter. Jorund’s dark eyes followed every movement. The twin flames of candle and lamp caught on their depths and glittered. 

But when Geralt made to kneel in front of Jorund, a big hand stopped him. 

“No, no,” he shook his head. “That’s starting at the end. And anyway I, ah. I’d want it the other way ‘round.”

He cupped a palm around Geralt’s jaw, leaning in slowly until their faces were a finger’s-breadth apart. The mead on both their breaths made the space between them sweet and honeyed. 

The kiss itself was awkward, too much pucker and not enough yield. But Geralt kissed back, showing with his own mouth what to do, until Jorund seemed to understand and allowed himself to be kissed properly. 

Kneeling on uneven boards without his armor to protect his shins quickly grew unpleasant. When it overshadowed the kiss too much Geralt rose, pulling Jorund over to the bed, and then tugged at him till he spread himself over Geralt. 

Normally Geralt would have been happy to spend the rest of the day this way, weighed down by a warm body and kissing till his lips grew sore. But he couldn’t stop thinking of Yen, of how he’d left her in the garden, of the taste of her on his tongue just a day ago and the exhausted yet defiant expression she'd worn when she had finished interrogating the corpse.  So as soon as Geralt felt himself to be hard enough, he pushed at the other man’s shoulders. 

“I’ll teach you,” he promised, and made to undo his breeches. 

But here, too, Jorund refused to be rushed, folding back Geralt’s shirt and stroking a tentative hand over Geralt’s belly. He regarded the scars with a weather eye, interested yet not disgusted, before lowering his face to run his nose along them, then his cheek. His stubble rasped over the sensitive skin, raising gooseflesh all over Geralt's arms.

By the time Jorund finally bared Geralt’s cock, Geralt almost regretted initiating this tryst. This was so slow. He had wanted a quick fuck and the feeling of seed on his tongue or down his thigh. Enough movement and sensation to make him forget. And as the moments passed, it became clearer that what Jorund wanted was something to remember. 

So Geralt focused on his breathing, his heartbeat, slowing them down and emptying his mind until his thoughts calmed. There was nothing but here and now. The patter of rain outside, the heat of Jorund’s breath on Geralt’s thigh, the brush of one curious fingertip along the shaft. 

It was worth it in the end. Jorund’s crooked teeth didn’t make his mouth any less hot or wet. He took instruction well, quickly learning how to move his head and hand together. And it never took much to make a Witcher come. 

The rush of it blotted out everything else for a little while. Even beyond the stillness of a Witcher’s meditation, climax wiped his thoughts clean. Made it all so simple. 

He would go back to Yen. They would find Ciri. Things would fall into place from there. 

Rising from his place between Geralt's knees, Jorund kissed him again, slow and sweet and gentle, and Geralt allowed it and allowed it. Jorund’s hard cock pressed into his hip. Maybe now Geralt could do what he was good at. 

But when he reached down, Jorund stopped him. 

“I can get myself off anytime. That’s not what this was about.”

Geralt squinted at him incredulously. 

“Then why did you...” he trailed off, not wanting to seem ungrateful. 

“This is my home,” Jorund explained. “I was born here, and gods willing, I’ll die here as well. Maybe others would leave to seek out new experiences elsewhere but that's not my way. And if there are other men who want this here, they’ve never made it known to me. So unless another Witcher comes through someday, this will be the only time.”

“Then don’t you want everything?” Geralt asked, now even more baffled. “I can do so much more than just lie here and let you make me feel good. We can do whatever you want.”

Jorund shook his head with a half-smile as though Geralt had said something funny. “I wanted to know what it would be like, touching a man, and now I do. Any more and I’d just want you to stay.”

With that he rose from the bed, adjusting his clothing till he looked more presentable. Then he seated himself again, waiting until Geralt rose to get himself in order too, and watched in silence as Geralt lifted his pack and settled it onto his shoulders. 

“You’re sure,” Geralt asked, now feeling selfish. 

Jorund gestured him over and Geralt went, moving into the V of the man’s knees. Big hands settled over his belt as Jorund looked up at him. 

“I’m sure. A man with scars like yours who walks the world breaking curses--I think you’d be too easy to love if I went any further. As it is, I’ll remember you till I die.”

Swallowing desperately around some word or feeling that wanted to get out, Geralt thanked whatever god might care to listen for the Witcher mutations which kept him from blushing or crying or both. No heat came to his cheeks nor tear prickled his eye and it was better that way. 

Before leaving he bent for a final kiss, lingering and soft, and then listened for the latch to click shut behind him. 

He had to get back to Yen. 


	20. Yennefer, Final

That Yennefer wanted to find another djinn set off a warning in the back of Geralt’s mind. The first one she had encountered and tried to control had gone so terribly.  _ He _ had done such a terrible thing with it. 

(Or was it so terrible? Had it been wrong to want a life with her? Was this not an outcome to be desired?)

But he had left her behind in the walled garden. He hadn't even asked how she was doing, even though he knew powerful magics were often draining to their user. Which meant he owed it to her to not ask as many questions this time. And it made sense that she would need power now, when no one knew what the search for Ciri would require of them. With a Djinn at her command, perhaps she could simply find Ciri. She could bring them directly to her. 

That Yennefer had already chartered the boat she needed and made all the other preparations--as if she had been completely certain he would not only say yes but return to help her--got a reflexive spasm of anger from him. But it dulled away just as fast. 

He had wished to be with her always. This was his doing. This was what he had wanted. And so many Witchers never got to have half so much as this. 

When what she wanted turned out to be him diving into the freezing ocean to look at shipwrecks, enchanted so he could survive much longer without air, with her inside his mind like a blade slipped into his guts...

He had wished for them to be together always. If this was what it took to get to that someday, then what choice did he have? 

He dived. 

The first wreck contained nothing useful. The second contained some items he might use, but nothing to please Yennefer. 

The third wreck sat at the bottom of a massive crater, as though the gods themselves had scooped out the ocean floor with a spoon. In the crater lay half a ship, sheared in twain like butter cut with a hot knife. Objects split just as neatly lay scattered across the seabed. Baskets, bottles...and a human skeleton, pelvis sheared crossways so only one hip remained. 

Teleportation magic had caused this, she told him. Someone had teleported half the ship and left everything else behind. 

In amongst all this lay half a seal of the type that might be used to contain a djinn. When he picked it up, it was warm to the touch. 

As he held it, as Yennefer looked through his eyes at it, he wondered what it would be like if he were ever able to look into her mind in return. If they could be equal in this. What would he see? 

A few minutes later he surfaced, shivering and blue-skinned. And few moments after that, she opened a portal and pulled them both through it. 

The unholy squeeze of it, as though his whole body were being pulled through the eye of a needle, brought him to his knees. Snow crunching beneath them. He wheezed, choking, saltwater still dripping out of his hair and into his burning eyes. When he managed to lift his blurry gaze, all he could see was blinding sunlight on white. 

Yennefer gently wiped his face, pushing his hair back, and then held her hand out, helping him to his feet. He tried not to cling to her. 

The other half of the ship sat uneasily upon the mountainside, tipped at an angle. It had slid until huge rocks stopped it. Inside, rimed with frost and half-hidden under drifts of snow, rotted by damp in the years since it had landed, lay scattered books and silverware and other signs that once this ship had contained a wealthy occupant. 

The man himself, body still preserved by the cold, had been crushed under a bookcase, still holding the other half of the seal. 

Geralt took it in shaking hands, lifting it. Binding sigils marked both sides of the ceramic surface. Unlike everything else here, the seal showed no signs of wear or age, neither dust nor frost nor anything else. 

This half too felt warm like human skin. 

Coming up from behind him, Yennefer held out her hand to take it. 

“What do you need this for?” Geralt asked, no longer able to stay silent about it. “Why do you want a djinn?”

She gave him a crooked smile, leaning on one hip with her hand still out. 

“You already know. A djinn’s power is priceless to a mage!”

But he held onto the seal, refusing to hand it over. 

“I do know that. But I want to know how you plan to use it.”

She huffed as if this were very foolish and tiresome. Most of the time he would have let it drop at that, dissuaded by her clear disapproval. But now, shivers wracking him as the mountain wind whipped over his wet clothes, he no longer had the patience. He stared at her until she met his eyes, briefly--and then looked away from him again. 

This time when she sighed it was a tired sound, slow and long. 

“How long has this been going on, Geralt? This thing between us. Fifteen, twenty years?” She turned, her feet leaving deep prints in the spotless white. “We repeatedly split up, then return to one another. Something draws us to each other. But I can never be certain if it’s a true feeling, or merely a bit of mischief by a djinn.”

Geralt’s mind went silent. He could feel his heart beating under his breastbone, slow as only a Witcher’s could be. 

“This is about my last wish,” he realized. 

This time her words were sharp. “You asked that djinn to bind us together forever. I want a  _ choice, _ Geralt--I want to ask another one to take that wish back.”

He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the seal. It felt remarkably like touching Yennefer’s hipbone, the smooth crest of bone just below her skin. 

“I get it,” he responded at last. “You want to be free of this.”

“I want to know if, with the djinn’s magic gone, we’ve any magic left of our own,” she corrected. 

Back and forth, back and forth, the movement of his thumb almost hypnotic.

“What if I don’t want to know?” he whispered.

She took the seal from his unresisting hands. 

“You no longer have a choice. Just as I did not have a choice.”

She summoned the djinn. Just as Geralt had suspected, she couldn’t bind it again, she didn’t have the strength. But this time she didn’t try. She offered it a fair bargain: freedom, release from the seal it was trapped in, in exchange for removing the spell. 

The sky darkened, the world shrank, and it seemed as though the whole universe waited upon the djinn’s reply. 

He almost wished the djinn would kill them instead. 

The light returned. A tingle ran over his whole body, a ripple of response to the movement of something huge, and he gasped, collapsing onto the deck. 

A moment later it was done. 

He blinked at the blue above him before rolling onto his side. The sun neared the horizon. Every day grew shorter than the last as they approached winter. 

Rising, he went over to where she sat slumped against the balustrade. Curious, he searched her face, as though there would be some visible sign that things were different. But it was the same face as ever, the same fine brown skin, the same dark wavy hair, the same long neck, and the same small shoulders, one shoulder slightly higher than the other. 

Wordless, perhaps neither of them willing to speak, they walked over to the edge together, sitting there with their feet hanging over into the abyss below. Hills spread out before them. Soon the rich green would fade as the cold season crept down from the mountaintops. 

“We make a good team,” she said at last, glancing at him briefly before she looked away again just as fast. “Thank you for doing this, Geralt. I would have done it alone if you’d refused, but it’s better that you’re here.”

He nodded, half-smiling. “Well, I never could say no to you.”

She did not smile back. “Perhaps that will change now.” 

His heart beat slow, slow, slow. Even despite the wind he grew warmer. Blood returned to his fingers, his toes, even as his breath misted before him. 

“I expected...I don’t know what I expected, actually. Vertigo, perhaps?” She drew a deep lungful of air, straightening. “I thought...you’d become a stranger to me. That I’d look at you and feel nothing. But it’s not like that at all.”

He waited, but she said nothing more. And then all at once, he realized: she was waiting for him to take the lead, finally. 

“I don’t…” he began. He had never been good with words. Slippery, tricky things. 

“The magic is gone for me,” he said at last. “I’m not in love anymore.”

Something softened in her posture. Her eyes closed. Reaching out, she fumbled for his hand, grasping it in hers. 

“Me too,” she admitted, and sounded so small. “Me too.”

He squeezed, pulling her forearm into his lap. 

“I still want--the spell is gone. The  _ magic _ is gone. But we are still--we could be friends, now,” he fumbled. This mattered so much that he didn’t want to get it wrong. “We could be  _ friends, _ Yen, do you understand? We have never been friends. Not truly.  You were always angry at me for what I did, and always punishing me for it, weren’t you? Which meant I was angry at you. And now...”

He hardly dared think it. What would it even be like to care for her without feeling like he was drowning? To be near her without shame or pain?

“Yes,” she whispered, and then pressed a hand to her chest. “Imagine that. Imagine...” he heard her swallow. “Imagine someone who loved me without being forced.”

Did she not feel the same way? Was she  _ actually _ in love with him? He had never considered that she might be. In the horrible moments when he had imagined the spell being broken, he had pictured himself feeling the same and her just leaving him behind. 

“You deserve better than this,” he told her.

“Maybe I do,” she shook her head. “But where will I find it? If it has been this hard even with you, even when you  _ had _ to love me--”

“Yen.” He brought her hand to his face, not to kiss it, but just to hold it there. “Yen, are you still in love with me?”

Her eyes squeezed shut, tears glittering on the lashes. She shook her head. 

“No,” she whispered, sounding as though the words were being torn out of her. Like a hook inside her chest had pulled loose. “No, I am not. But that just means there is no one in the world to love me anymore. No one I can love.”

All at once he understood. He kissed her fingers then, once, twice, and then a third time. 

“I hoped...” he paused. He had never told her this. He had always kept it to himself, afraid of her mocking it. But now there was no reason to conceal it any longer. “I hoped that loving you meant I was destined for something beyond the Path. Something beyond the next contract, the next monster, the next fight. I wanted to believe that I could be made and destined for something other than that. Now I don’t know anymore either.”

She blinked damp eyes at him. She nodded as if she understood.

“It made life easier, in a way, knowing that you  _ had _ to love me," she confessed. "That you would always be waiting for me. Even when I hated it, even when I hated you, I knew that you’d be there for me. That someday we’d come back together. It will be hard not having that anymore, even if it is also a relief.”

He laughed. “You’ll just have to  _ trust _ me. And treat me well, so I _want_ to stay. Imagine that.”

She laughed too, maybe a little bitterly, but there was no anger in her face. 

“If that is your wish...”

She brought him to Kaer Trolde. They both knew he could no longer share a bed with her. Not now, when things were so raw and new, and probably not ever. This was nothing like how Geralt fucked his friends, where the friendship had come first and stayed after. 

Crach had offered Geralt a place to stay and he took it now. In his room, alone, he lay down his swords and took off his armor. 

Tomorrow would be a new day. 


	21. Jutta an Dimun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with every other character in these games, Jutta an Dimun is canonically white. But since that's racist and exhausting, I was picturing her as Chinese. 
> 
> I altered these scenes from canon, because they only make sense via game logic and don't work very well as real characterization. Also holy shit Geralt actually tops in this chapter! LBR, it's still service-topping, but yeah.

Finding a ship to take Geralt back to the continent was no easier than finding him one to get him to Skellige. He traveled around the harbors, asking the clans for help. Plenty were willing to raid Nilfgaardian ships, but almost none willing to peaceably go to one of Nilfgaard’s ports. 

Yennefer could have taken Geralt there in the blink of an eye with one of her portals. While she might still be in Skellige herself, packing up her belongings, Geralt knew they needed not to see one another for a time. And besides, he did not feel encouraged by the very, very thin lead she had found by interrogating the corpse. Yennefer could go to Velen to investigate it herself. And if Ciri did come for her phylactery, then there were plenty in Novigrad who knew where Geralt was. She could look for _him_ for a change. 

In the meantime, there was always plenty of work for a Witcher. He slew sirens, arachas, wraiths, and endrega. 

While checking the notice board in another village, seeing if anyone needed anything he could do, he came across a very strange notice. The vellum was old, stained with rain and snow, and the ink faded from sunlight. It read: _ Fight the Iron Maiden! No man yet has ever bested her! _ Following these words was a description of a nearby house where, Geralt supposed, the aforementioned Iron Maiden could be found. 

Curiosity piqued, Geralt tapped the vellum with one finger, and then went to go meet this woman. 

He found her hard at work. She worked as the local boatwright, and the muscles of her arms gleamed in the midday sun as she hammered a board into place. Her blue-black hair, shot with grey around her temples, fell around her shoulders when she looked up at Geralt with a wary expression. 

“Are you the one in the notice?” he inquired. 

At this she snorted, expression hard. She searched his face, examining all his features, before scanning all the rest of him in an unfriendly up-and-down. 

“Aye,” she said at last. “You’ve got two swords and cat eyes, so you must be a Witcher. You’ve come to fight me, then? I warn you, no man’s been found who could best me in combat.”

Having no wish to kill this woman just for the sake of exercise, Geralt clarified what the winning conditions would be before accepting the challenge. When it turned out that Jutta an Dimun, for that was her name, kept a pair of dull swords for this purpose, Geralt happily agreed. He could think of far worse things to do on a sunny day in Skellige than testing his skill against a fine warrior who meant him no real harm. 

By the time Jutta had donned her armor, word had spread throughout the village and a small crowd had gathered around the town square where the fight would take place. 

To Geralt’s surprise and delight, Jutta turned out to be not just competent with a blade but _extremely_ skilled. She dodged his blows on light feet, blocked his probing jabs with neat swings of her sword, and then came after him with a vengeance. 

It was like being back in Kaer Morhen. The memory was so strong that Geralt could almost smell the brewing herbs in the background, almost hear Vesimir critiquing his footwork. 

By the time he finally won, tearing the blade from her hand before pressing his own to her throat, he had begun to sweat, hot under his heavy clothes and armor. He expected her to be dismayed, having ruined her reputation as undefeated. But instead she stood several seconds, catching her breath and staring at him, before breaking into a tremendous smile. 

It changed her whole face. Then, just to complete Geralt's surprise, everyone else burst into wild applause. Cries of “Finally!” chorused all around. 

“Not surprised you have a hard time finding worthy opponents,” Geralt complimented her, unsure what was happening but happy he didn't now have an angry mob on his hands. “You’re very good.”

“Where did you learn all that?” she asked, shaking out her arms and bending to retrieve her sword from the packed dirt. 

“At a Witcher school on the continent,” he told her. 

She was still smiling. “I’d wager you learned a great deal on the road, too. Would you tell me about it?”

He shook his head. “It’d make for a long story." 

But she just laughed, looking almost relieved. She let out a big breath. 

“We’ll need mead, then. And a quiet spot away from this lot,” she said, slapping the shoulder of a man who came up to congratulate her. Which was when Geralt really _noticed_ the others--why would someone congratulate a combatant on _losing?_ And why _did_ she seem so delighted? 

“Seems like you’ve got a story of your own here,” Geralt said in a quieter voice. “I’ve got time. Let’s find somewhere to hear it.”

When she took him back to what was clearly her house, rather than somewhere public like the inn, Geralt realized he’d misunderstood this whole situation. He had anticipated talking strategy to another fighter, but now it was clear he was going to be talking, alone, to a very handsome woman. 

Well. This was as fine a way to pass the time as any. And now that he wasn’t with Yennefer any longer...

The thought pulled a sudden, sharp pain from his chest, as though something had torn free a second time. But it faded just as fast. 

Jutta invited him to sit and plied him with fine mead she dug out of a chest below her bed. But now they were alone, Jutta fumbled with her words, tripping over them and mixing them up and refusing to meet his eyes as though she were now anxious to be with him. 

“Am I misreading this?” he asked at last. “I thought--when you brought me here rather than the inn, I expected that you and I would…” He gave an indefinite wave of his hand, not wanting to be crude. 

Jutta laughed, but this time it was mirthless, with an edge of panic to it. “Yeah. I do want that. It’s just...” She cleared her throat, fidgeting with her tunic. “I swore to Freya that only he who bested me in battle would lie with me, take me as his wife, or give me children.”

In shock he blinked at her. Understanding dawned all at once: the delight of the locals, the congratulations when she had lost, and even the walled-off expression with which she’d met him. 

“When you made that oath, did you even want to do any of those things?” Geralt asked, wanting to make sure he wouldn’t be making a terrible mistake if he pressed. “Because if you did, then Freya has played a cruel trick on you.”

“Well...” Jutta coughed, pale cheeks flushing. “I wouldn’t mind, uh, the first thing. I’m not so sure about marrying and children.” One finger traced a circle on the side of her cup. “You’re a Witcher anyway. Everyone knows they’re wanderers. So it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I can’t give you marriage or children, no,” Geralt agreed. “Especially not children. Witchers are incapable of siring any.”

At this, her eyes at last swung back up to his again. She was bright pink now, probably both from the mead and from her own embarrassment. Because, Geralt now realized, if she had sworn never to lie with a man who couldn’t best her, and no man had bested her...anything she did with Geralt would almost certainly be her first experience. 

Had she been younger, Geralt might have walked out then. A young woman would have reminded him too much of Ciri. But by human standards, she clearly was not young: Geralt would guess older than thirty, and perhaps even forty. 

“That...that sounds like exactly what I’d hoped for,” she admitted at last. She looked like she might combust on the spot saying it, but she didn’t look unhappy now. 

So Geralt smiled at her again. If what she had wanted was sex without strings attached or fear of consequences, perhaps Freya had blessed her after all. 

They went to bed together. 

Now that they had gotten the necessary explanation out of the way, Jutta came out of her shell. She took to kissing like a duck to water, biting at Geralt’s mouth and grabbing at his hair. And while doing this, she kneaded at his ass, pulling at him with her hands just the same as any man anticipating what Geralt could provide him. As this was exactly what Geralt liked best, he felt himself well-served. 

When she tired of kissing, Geralt decided that his mouth could be put to use other places, too. It only took a little bit of questioning to get out of her what she liked in this regard, and then she came on his face making delighted noises and pulling even harder on his hair. 

She smelled so different from Yen. Thoughts of her kept arising, but Geralt just pushed them away with practiced ease. 

Finally, Jutta pushed Geralt down onto the mattress, looking dubiously at his cock before taking it in one hand and giving it a considering look. 

“You don’t have to,” he told her.

“No I want to,” she said, looking serious. “I’m a woodworker, I’ve made myself my own toys. There’s no hymen left to break. It’s just that I’m not sure of the angle, and I’m particular. When it’s me by myself, there’s no second body to consider, you know?”

Geralt couldn’t help the huff of amusement that escaped him at this. He _did_ know. Various lovers throughout the years had given him similar toys, including Dandelion. 

It took a bit of experimentation, and her making thoughtful faces Geralt wasn’t used to seeing in his lovers, but they managed to find a position she liked and ended the evening very pleasantly. 

Afterward they finished the bottle together, and in the morning she sent Geralt off with a smile and a wave and a beard smelling of someone other than Yennefer. 

Geralt considered it one of the finest rewards he had received as a result of answering a notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline of the game bends to game logic, which says that the game starts in fall and ends in fall even though you can spend months and months of in-game time faffing about. The timeline in this fic doesn't make a whole lot of sense either if we assume a 12-month year like we have. So let's either say who cares what the timeline is, or agree that the Witcher-verse has a much longer year than we do. 
> 
> Also, PLEASE COMMENT. I'm writing this fic for myself, but it's honestly kind of depressing seeing the page view and kudos numbers rise when I'm receiving almost no comments from people who aren't my friends. I know people are shy or don't know what to say, but it makes this fandom feel unwelcoming.


	22. Jad Karadin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is very much NOT a ship chapter. It's a murder chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: this chapter mentions slavery and deals with the death of a slave trader. Mind your needs in reading it. 
> 
> Also, I wrote this chapter after the Yoana chapter and the second Lambert chapter. I had already finished this quest well before I wrote those chapters, but I forgot to write anything about this quest until I wrote the altar chapter. It's hard to keep track of everything! The order in which you can do things in the games makes no sense logistically or emotionally, so it's easy for me to forget stuff. Whoops!
> 
> I rearranged the chapters to insert this chapter where it belongs, and edited the Yoana chapter to reflect the change.

Jad Karadin’s calm, unruffled yellow eyes sent a ripple of horror through Geralt. The sun moved out from behind a cloud, bright rays falling on Karadin's face, and his pupils narrowed to thin slits. 

No one had ever mentioned that Karadin was a Witcher. Geralt breathed deeply, slowly, trying to calm his heartbeat.

Men like Karadin were part of why Witchers were now viewed as untrustworthy monsters. So many from the School of the Cat had set aside all moral strictures and political neutrality for profit. Even beyond that, _ this _ was the man responsible for the killing of Lambert’s friend, Aiden--a fellow Witcher. 

Witchers killed other Witchers sometimes. Geralt remembered hearing stories of a few such deaths in his youth, Witchers who had become corrupted, cruel and barbaric and too powerful to be stopped by ordinary men. But those had been killings of necessity, merely the Witchers policing their own, not...this. What Karadin had done to Aiden turned Geralt’s stomach, acid boiling in his gut so he had to swallow and breathe, swallow and breathe. Not even Letho’s mistakes approached this.

And it wasn’t just assassinations Karadin’s band of killers carried out. Selyse, Karadin’s old lover, had become so wealthy that she had opened a high-end brothel that serviced the wealthy and influential of Tretegor, extorting secrets from clients and selling them for even greater reward. And Hammond, also previously one of Karadin’s men, had gone on to build a massive slave-trading ring in Skellige. Both Selyse and Karadin were involved in it. They even used one of _ Karadin’s own ships _ to move the human cargo all along the coast. 

Every single one of Karadin’s band had gone on to become successful--except the elf, who had been abandoned to rot in a slum. 

When Geralt had agreed to help Lambert get vengeance, it had been out of obligation to his friend and their diminishing community of Witchers. But opening the cramped, stinking cells full of kidnapped Skelligers had hardened Geralt’s will to see this through into a knot of cold rage. And now...

And now here sat Karadin, comfortable in his fine clothing of brocade and silk, in a manicured garden of an expansive house in the priciest district in Novigrad, with a beautiful wife and two adopted children he cared for in style. 

The faces of the wife and children burned themselves into Geralt’s mind as they looked up at him, clearly surprised and intrigued to see other men with eyes like Karadin's. Geralt would remember those faces forever: that a Witcher had _ married, _ that a Witcher had _ legally _ taken in wards...

Contract killings paid well. Enough people had made Geralt offers of that type for him to know. But slave trading, _that_ paid better. Assassination work alone, especially in the limited span of years in which Karadin had worked with his group of killers, could not _ possibly _ have paid for all this. And it definitely could not have amassed a wealth great enough for a long-lived Witcher to retire on. 

The numbers belied Karadin's veneer of moral rectitude and retirement. He had created a public image of charity to orphans and downtrodden women, perhaps including his own wife and wards, and had managed to conceal the source of his fortune from his neighbors here in Novigrad. But not Geralt. Even had he not seen the slave cells himself, Witchers ate a great deal even when they weren’t out on the hunt. So a Witcher in the prime of his life who planned to retire, much less one who intended to do so with _ this _ many servants in a house of _ this _ size while supporting three others and being known for philanthropy--the money required to do that boggled Geralt’s mind. 

Karadin sent his wife and sons indoors. Perhaps he already knew this would get messy. Perhaps his men had seen Geralt and Lambert coming, and Karadin had brought his wife and children out as a sympathy ploy to manipulate them into sparing him. 

Perhaps he had simply been having a quiet day in retirement, a horrible little voice in the back of Geralt’s mind said. _You could have this too if you worked hard enough,_ the voice said. A home, a marriage, a quiet life in which he was treated with respect--it was everything Geralt had never let himself dream of with Yen. With _any_ of his lovers. Everything a Witcher was never meant to have. 

Especially _ not like this. _

“I’ve been expecting you,” Karadin informed them. 

“What school did you come out of?” Geralt demanded, needing to know. 

Karadin smiled, a slow curl of his mouth exposing his bright white teeth. “That of the Cat,” Karadin replied. “So _ few _ of us left.”

He had not only killed a fellow Witcher, but one of his own School. His own _ family. _ And now here he was joking about it. 

But Geralt was calm. He would see this through, the right way. Unlike Karadin, he would consider carefully before striking down one of his brethren. 

“I could understand a Witcher becoming a hired assassin, but a merchant?” Geralt probed, seeing what Karadin would say about his slave trading. Would he acknowledge it? Or would he lie to them?

“Why ever not?” Karadin asked, spreading his hands. “Not one among us doesn’t dream of changing our life! I simply did not _ stop _ at dreaming. They say no Witcher has ever died in his bed--I aim to be the first.”

“Remains to be seen,” Lambert hissed under his breath. A normal man would not have heard it. But Karadin doubtless had. 

Geralt reached out to grasp Lambert’s shoulder, squeezing tight in both solidarity and warning. Geralt knew that only his own presence had kept Lambert from attacking this man on sight, waiting long enough for the innocents to leave so they didn’t have to witness whatever followed. 

But Lambert surprised him. He drew in a sharp breath through his nose, turning away. 

“Talk to him, Geralt. If I do, the first word he says directly to me, I’ll lose it and throttle the fucker.”

Geralt nearly felt the same himself. The trust implicit in that--for Geralt to do this the right way, the calm way, the _ Witcher _ way--humbled Geralt. So he would get through this correctly.

“Your wife know who you were?” Geralt asked. 

“We are thoroughly honest with each other, harbor _ no _ secrets,” he purred, looking straight at Geralt, _ mocking _ him for his famously bumbling romance with Yennefer. “She prays for me each day. And you know what?” Karadin leaned forward, to look right into Geralt’s eyes. “I think it’s _ working.” _

“Fucking hell!” Lambert spat, and his arm raised to grasp the hilt of his sword. 

Geralt pulled him back. Lambert’s arm dropped again. 

“I confessed _ all _ just before we pledged to marry one another,” Karadin continued. “Began a new life that day, with a clean slate.” 

That was when Geralt realized: Karadin had been prepared for their coming, but he didn’t know how much they had truly uncovered. Karadin’s guards had identified both Geralt and Lambert on sight, inviting them willingly into the house, meaning the guards had been given clear descriptions. Karadin must have had people watching Vienne, must have found out that they had asked her about him. He probably thought it had taken them this long to find him because of his name change. So Karadin probably believed that Geralt and Lambert didn’t know about the slave trading and thought this visit was only about the assassinations.

He almost certainly hadn’t heard of the deaths of his fellow ‘merchants.’ News took a long time to travel from Skellige to the continent, and the ship Geralt had returned on had been arranged specially for him by Crach an Craite as payment for ridding the isles of Hammond. Which meant Karadin was relying on Geralt and Lambert's ignorance--and possibly their sympathy because of their own checkered pasts--to save himself. Otherwise he wouldn’t be this cocky.

All Witchers killed men sooner or later. If nothing else, bandits on the roads were an ever-present danger in a Witcher’s life. But most Witchers were responsible for deaths other than just those. 

When Geralt had found the slave trading settlement in Skellige, he had killed every single free man in the entire site. He had burned the bodies and breathed in the smell of their burning flesh. He had felt no guilt, just as he had felt no guilt with the witch hunters. It was all the same: _ Witchers killed monsters. _ That some of those monsters were human was just a complication of the job. 

Some of them were also Witchers, apparently. 

“Remember Aiden? A Witcher. Murdered in Ellander.” Geralt nodded his head at the big house, the extensive gardens, keeping up his pretense of ignorance. “Guessing the killers were paid well.”

At this Karadin leaned back, crossing his arms, face blanking into unreadability. For a second he merely regarded them. 

“I remember him as I remember all the others: with deepest regret.”

If Geralt had not known what he did, he might almost have taken it for sincerity. But a man couldn’t feel any real remorse for what he _continued_ to do. And some things were beyond any forgiveness. 

“Yet Aiden was different in a way," Karadin continued. "Contrary to rumor, we did not set out to kill him. We were forced to, when he attacked _us.”_

Geralt blinked in shock at this horrendous bald-faced lie. By his side Lambert let out a slow breath. 

“What’s your version of this story?” Geralt demanded. 

Karadin spun a ridiculous tale about being hired as debt collectors, sent to reclaim coin from Aiden for a bungled job from which he’d fled _ after _ being paid in full up-front--as if anyone would throw away _more_ money hiring a group of killers just to recap other coin already lost. Which made it clear that Karadin also knew nothing of Aiden’s connection to Lambert. Karadin assumed that Geralt and Lambert, so obviously from the School of the Wolf themselves, were pursuing this as a matter of professional courtesy, and might thus be convinced that Aiden had been no better than Karadin himself. 

Worse still, Karadin clearly meant to redirect Lambert's anger at Vienne, who was now a loose end Karadin wanted tied off. He told them that Vienne alone, _without_ orders, had been the one to murder Aiden with a sniper shot to the eye. 

But an elf that deep in drink and fisstech addiction had far less reason and ability to lie than this man, amidst all his wealth and success. 

“I’ve heard enough,” Geralt growled. “Your remorse is feigned, completely dishonest. You put on a good show, but I just don’t believe you.”

“We came here to kill you,” Lambert agreed, and unsheathed his blade. 

Geralt drew his as well. 

For a moment Karadin just looked at them with their blades drawn, and Geralt wondered if he was going to try to frame _ them _ for this killing as well. Did Karadin had snipers waiting to shoot them too, people in hiding who would tell the City Watch that Karadin had been the one unjustly attacked when he had not been resisting?

Geralt raised a Quen shield.

In a movement almost too fast to see, Karadin drew the single steel sword he carried at his hip like any other common human. 

Everything after that was remarkably simple. A Witcher could best almost any other man in a one-to-one fight, but two Witchers against one who had let himself go--it was no contest. 

Yet Karadin got in one blow, a deep strike that tore open the inside of Geralt’s left elbow. Geralt spun away, desperately pressing his hand to the wound. There was an artery there and Karadin had almost certainly hit it. Hot blood poured around his fingers.

Lambert screamed, a brutal shriek of rage, and then it was over: the tip of his sword cleaved through Karadin’s throat and the man fell to the paving stones of the garden path. 

Lambert ran to Geralt, reaching into his hip satchel and pulling out the familiar orange tincture that would close nearly any wound a Witcher might sustain. He tore the cork out with his teeth, pressing it to Geralt’s mouth. Swallowing, Geralt maintained his grip till he felt the flow stop, leaving only the sticky congealing blood between his palm and his arm. 

“If he’d gotten you too I’d have--” Lambert’s mouth curled into a furious frown. His nostrils flared. “Well nevermind. You’re fine.”

In silence they left the estate together, climbing the wall and landing on the street outside to avoid encountering any more guards.

The cut had been deep but it was already just a jagged line that would fully seal in several days. But part of Geralt's arm was numb--the nerves would take longer to recover, perhaps weeks. 

Lambert saw Geralt flexing his fingers as they walked, watched him remove his glove and test where he had lost sensation with the thumb of his other hand.

“Thank you,” Lambert said at last, halting and graceless. “Do you, uh. Do you want to talk about it?”

He might be a hotheaded asshole most of the time but he was doing his best. Yet Geralt shook his head. 

“No.”

Geralt did not wish to talk about it. He did not wish to _ think _ about it either, about a Witcher leaving the Path, adopting children, marrying. Lambert already knew that Geralt had ended things with Yennefer at long last--which was probably part of why he had asked. 

And probably because neither of them had ever expected to be the ones responsible with policing their own. Maybe Lambert was the one who wanted to talk.

But Geralt couldn't give him that. Not now. And even without words, Geralt thought they understood each other just fine. 

So instead they went to a tavern together and got blind drunk. They didn’t touch beyond collapsing into bed side by side. 

The next morning they parted ways. 


	23. Yoana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought Geralt was gonna get through this whole fic without getting pegged, then you were dead wrong. 
> 
> Again, same disclaimer about how racist and white the games are. I was picturing Yoana as South Asian. It's a relief to throw this aspect of canon in the rubbish where it belongs.

Geralt had known something was amiss between Yoana, the supposed smithy’s assistant, and Fergus, the supposed armorer. He just hadn’t known what. 

Their first meetings, when Geralt had stopped for repairs to the chainmail and leather of his armor, he had thought the problem was social. Fergus seemed unnecessarily harsh about keeping Yoana from talking to customers. Even when she had useful input to offer, he silenced her and told her off for intruding. But Geralt had met plenty of rude dwarves, so he thought nothing more of it. 

But when the repairs were finished and Geralt had asked if they had word of any master armorers capable of crafting custom armor, Yoana had jumped in, talking over Fergus and asking for specialty tools all the way from Skellige. Fergus hadn’t known what the hell she was talking about, which had seemed strange given that he was a supposedly fine smith. Even Geralt, who had little enough experience with smithing, had heard of the Tordarroch armorers in Skellige. 

That was when Geralt had begun to suspect what was really going on. He had agreed to get Yoana the tools if he happened upon them. Good armor had saved Witchers’ lives for centuries, so it was worth extra effort. 

When he returned from Skellige with the tools in hand, the whole charade fell apart. As Geralt had suspected, Yoana herself was the master armorer, while Fergus was a common blacksmith only truly capable of making horseshoes and hobnails. But as everyone believed dwarves to be master craftsmen, and many on the continent were skeptical about allowing that women could be professionals in any field (much less smithing), and Yoana had come over to the continent with no money and no family, she had needed help establishing herself. And given that she now made the armor for every officer in this portion of the Nilfgaardian army, she had done well for herself and no longer needed the deception. 

As payment for getting her the tools, and believing her, she agreed to make Geralt fine new armor to his specifications. And as Geralt needed a few days to recover from the wound Karadin had managed to inflict, Geralt stayed while she made his armor. 

The injury wasn’t a serious one, because Geralt had drunk the healing draught in time, but it nonetheless required attention. A healed cut as deep as that one left behind scar tissue in his muscles. He needed herbs and oils to rub into the scar to soften it, and time to break it up by hand. 

And watching Yoana work was its own reward. She kept her long black hair braided out of her face, revealing her lovely aquiline nose and the glitter of sweat upon her brow. The heat of the forge meant that she wore sleeveless tunics under her thick leather apron. The muscles of her bare arms rippled as she hammered. 

It seemed that Yoana liked talking to Geralt too. She asked him the kinds of attacks he needed the armor to be able to turn, and describing claws and blades and fangs and everything else he encountered in his trade led to describing contracts he had taken and injuries he had sustained. Her meal breaks weren't long enough to finish conversations, and as Geralt spent so much time out in the cold and the elements, the heat of the forge proved a pleasing relief. So Geralt sat in the forge with her, kneading his scar tissue with liniment as they traded stories. 

She was not shy about admiring his scars. Just as he was not shy about admiring her skill and expertise. They were both masters of their own trades. 

When at last she presented him with an absolutely stunning set of armor--light but strong, quenched in archgriffon acid and padded with the finest leather--it made sense for him to offer _his_ services in return. Few women in his life had ever given him a gift as fine as this. And it wasn’t as though their flirtation had been subtle. 

She pushed him down onto her bed, damn near tore his trousers off, and got her mouth on him before he could offer anything else. There wasn’t much for him to do except lie there and take it. 

When one of her thumbs wandered down behind his ballsack, he nodded at her, biting his lip to keep from making eager noises. She had her own lodgings in the building she shared with Fergus, but the walls were thin, and the barracks was next door. Geralt didn’t want her private affairs to be known to the ranks. 

“You _ are _ the adventurous sort, aren’t you,” she murmured, pulling back as she fumbled in her nightstand for what Geralt immediately recognized as oil. “Most men won’t let me do this.”

“I’d let you do a whole lot more,” he admitted unthinkingly. He’d been close to his first climax when she’d stopped, and his brain was mostly between his legs as a result. 

She lifted her brows at him. “Like what?”

As a rule Geralt didn’t tell the women he slept with what he did with men. Yennefer had been an exception, of course, as had Triss, because Sorceresses often had their own social mores about sleeping with their own sex. But he wasn’t sure how honest he should be even with a woman offering to bugger him with her fingers. For most people there was a massive difference between men and women engaging in unusual behavior together and men sleeping with each other. 

So he just smiled at her, lifting his knees and letting them fall open. 

“Your pleasure. Whatever you want, I’ll probably say yes.”

Yoana laughed. “That’s yet to be seen. So if I were to, say, tell you that I’ve made some toys for myself...”

“I’d be curious,” Geralt replied, keeping his voice down. 

She pulled a box from the bottom of her wardrobe, setting it on the nightstand and opening it. From within, she drew something shining that jingled as it moved. The shining metal object had a bulb at one end and what looked like a phallus on the other. 

Eyes now wide in shock, Geralt sat up to stare. 

“What is it?” he asked, now professionally interested as well as personally. Whatever he’d expected, this had not been it. 

Rather than explain it, she showed him. First she shook the object, and from the pretty ringing noise it made, it seemed to be mostly hollow, with some sort of rattling bells inside. Then she bent forward, fitting the bulb inside herself--which left the rest of the thing outside her, curving forward between her lips into a lovely smooth metal cock. 

“Well then,” Geralt purred, delighted and already thinking of passing Yoana’s name along to Yennefer in case she wanted one for herself. That Geralt would never be able to use it with her if she bought one got a pang from him, but he shut the feeling away inside himself. “How do you want me?”

While her internal muscles did some of the work of holding the thing in place, it turned out that the phallus worked best with her thighs pressed together. So she lay back and let him climb on top. 

Unlike flesh, the dildo was so hard that Geralt could dig it into the sensitive spot inside him over and over again without half trying. He came all over her in record time, shaking apart and biting his tongue to keep silent.

At that Yoana clearly expected him to stop. But he waved her hands away from his hips, keeping right on going till he came again. 

After that it became a kind of competition: who would wear out first, and at what number of climaxes each. By the end of it, Geralt could barely stand, he was achingly sore inside, and he was considering putting off his cross-country trek for another day.

But he had no regrets. And Yoana waved to him from the gate as he left the Crow’s Perch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Yoana's toy as being a combination of a Feeldoe and ben-wa balls. Some of them make a lovely ringing noise as you move them.
> 
> Also, thanks for all the lovely comments on the last chapter. <3 I feel a lot better about continuing this fic now. If you wanna leave more comments, I'd love that!


	24. Gaetan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is pretty grim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter is just awful and miserable from start to finish.

Even beyond the smell of the necrophages themselves, Geralt knew the smells of death. Bodies lay strewn about the little cluster of houses. The metallic scent of blood coated everything, and with that, the things bodies did when their muscles relaxed: fresh urine and feces. 

At first, Geralt hoped it was just that some aged relative had died in the village, not been buried quick enough, and the scent of the corpse had drawn the alghouls. But when he examined the bodies, most of them hadn’t even been touched by the alghouls yet. One corpse nearby the well had been mostly eaten, but the others...

The wounds on the others were made by no beast, no teeth or claws or spines. Limbs cleaved off clean by a steel blade. One woman with her spinal cord severed with a precision strike--a blow that took aim, consideration, and had been calculated for a slow death as the woman lay helpless, bleeding to death. Others bore marks of struggle, a handprint painted in bruises on their necks, and stab wounds just where the major arteries lay. Geralt found deep bootprints near the corpses, as though someone had stood to watch his victims die. 

And in one house the head of a leshen sat upon the table, neatly removed from the neck with knife cuts. The exact way Witchers removed the heads of beasts to bring as proof of a completed job to those who’d put up a contract. Geralt had come here for a contract himself. 

By the time Geralt found the shaking little girl, curled up silent and weeping in the boughs of an old oak tree nearby, he didn’t need her scream when she saw his eyes to prove what he already knew. 

A _Witcher_ had done this. 

Geralt tracked the prints through the woods. As he ran, his mind filled with fantasies of an explanation that would pardon this: that the villagers had killed and tortured elves, perhaps. That they had been a cannibal cult eating their children, and the other Witcher had arrived just in time to save the little girl Geralt had found in the tree. Geralt wanted there to be something that would have _merited_ the slaughter, the pleasure the killer had taken in his massacre. 

When he found the Witcher--a man named Gaetan, who looked young, not that this meant anything with their kind--the story he told was all too familiar. The village ealdorman had promised him a great sum of coins, and then dropped the fee offensively low as soon as the monster was dead. They lied to Gaeten, getting him in private with the promise of more coin, only to stab him with a pitchfork to spare themselves the cost. 

The bleeding holes Gaetan clutched were all too familiar: Geralt bore a set of almost identical ones from the wound that had damn near killed him. He believed the tale, but...

Killing the ealdorman and his accomplice Geralt could have understood. It had been self-defense of a kind every Witcher was forced to practice sooner or later. Humans begged for protection from beasts in one moment and then spat on the Witcher that saved them the next.

But about all the other murders, Gaetan said he’d _ lost his temper. _ That he’d been too angry to think straight. He lied, his stare cold and hard, his hatred barely concealed. The location and type of the wounds, the evidence of staying to watch the deaths happen--that spoke to something calmer. Colder. 

When Geralt said it, Gaetan sneered. "I'm supposed to protect _filth_ like that? _That's_ why I became a Witcher? You can't believe that!"

It wasn’t Gaetan's fault, Geralt thought as he unsheathed his sword. The slaughter, yes--but the first crime which had truly caused this had occurred decades ago. It was not Gaetan’s fault that he’d been taken from his family, betrayed by his teachers, and his mind corrupted when he’d been too young to refuse. It was difficult enough to understand why Vesemir and the other older Witchers from the School of the Wolf had considered reflexes and powers worth the torture and killing of children. But how those from the School of the Cat justified those monstrosities to create _this?_

The probability that outbursts like this had happened to Gaetan before in the past and would happen to him again in the future was just too high. Disagreements like the one in this village occurred _ often _ on the Path. You either made peace with suffering, or you left the Path and turned mercenary as so many from the School of the Cat had...or you did this. 

Gaetan was strong, quick and graceful as Witchers with his formulation of mutagens always were. Geralt had seen it in Jad Karadin too. But Gaetan was already wounded, stabbed clear through his hip and side. He’d lost blood, lots of it, and it had made him weak. He might have defeated Geralt otherwise. As it was, Geralt’s blade went through him the same way it went through any other flesh. 

Gaetan stumbled. He dropped his sword from trembling fingers. His eyes went wide, staring at Geralt, begging him to help, for one of the potions that might even now save his life. 

“Please,” he choked out, blood bubbling from his mouth. “Haven’t I suffered enough?”

The lithe legs folded, dropping Gaetan to the forest floor. 

Geralt knelt at his side, laying his hand over Gaetan’s as it went cold. Gaetan’s eyes lay open, staring back long after the soul behind them had gone. 

Slowly, numbly, Geralt straightened the legs and folded the body’s hands over its breast. He laid the twin blades over the body as one did for warriors. He closed the eyelids over the golden irises that looked so much like Geralt’s own. Like Lambert’s. Like Eskel’s. 

The body burned like any other.


	25. Lambert, again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter where Geralt gets fucked on an altar and it's super magical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: canonically a huge amount of child torture and child death goes into making Witchers, so. Mind that. It's not 'onscreen' or anything, but it's mentioned and is the backdrop of this chapter. 
> 
> Also, while I don't normally suggest watching portions of the actual game because of all the racism and rapeyness and misogyny it contains, this quest has fantastic dialog and characterization. If you want to see this quest for yourself, there's a great recording of it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ6EmiXJqfM). If the player had Geralt end his relationship with Yennefer beforehand, the lines differ only in one place toward the beginning.

Returning to Kaer Morhen was...was...

Even after all these years, Geralt still didn’t know what it was. Relief, partly? A Witcher had no home, not really. Or at least was not meant to have one. But Kaer Morhen was a fixed point, the favored wintering ground for every Wolf School Witcher still alive. In the harshest months it sheltered Geralt's...family. Or what most Witchers had instead of family. And an entire childhood spent there, from infancy onward, left a lot of memories.

Depending on how one defined things, he had even fallen in love for the first time here. 

At the same time, Kaer Morhen still gave him a lingering sense of unease, even all these years later. He had undergone the Trials here. He had raged and grieved and finally given in to his destiny here. His body had been torn apart and remade here. He had watched his friends die beside him screaming in agony here. 

And right now, if all had gone well, the venerable walls would contain not only Vesimir, Eskel, and Lambert, but also Letho, Keira, and Yennefer. All of whom evoked deep feeling in Geralt whether he wanted it or not. 

Vesemir greeted Geralt with a fond embrace just inside the gate. His white-smeared clothes and stories of patching up the walls evoked further sensations in Geralt he couldn’t easily categorize. 

It was a comforting place at the same time as it was inhospitable and hard. Drafts and cold air always caught you out in Kaer Morhen, even in summer. With winter nearing, it would be icy everywhere but directly in front of a fireplace. But centuries of Witchers had stocked it with every type of blanket and bedding, built the fireplaces into works of art, and made space for every kind of stored belongings. Books, weapons, armor, toys, alchemy equipment, and every other thing a Witcher school and home would need had all found their resting place in Kaer Morhen. 

Standing in the courtyard, Geralt saw that someone had been hard at work preparing this place for winter. In addition to the wagon Vesimir had doubtless purchased to bring food and other goods up here, great stacks of firewood and kindling lay in wait for the winter. They loomed higher than they had for many years. But then, there were more people here this year than there had been for a long time. There were so few Witchers left alive.

The familiarity of it all, in both the best ways and the worst ways, ached inside Geralt like a stone lodged inside him. Perhaps the sensation was his Witcher mutations trying to eject the emotions as if they were a foreign object trapped in his gut. Or perhaps this was just what it felt like to return to a home as complicated as this one. Geralt didn’t know. 

What he did know was that Lambert dragged him back out again as soon as Geralt had set down his pack and unloaded Roach’s saddlebags. They were doing something to the phylactery for Yen, Lambert said, which meant taking the phylactery to the Circle of Elements, which meant listening to Lambert snark and bait Geralt the whole way there. 

The memories that arose walking along the old paths of the Trial of the Medallion crawled under Geralt’s skin like insects. He couldn’t imagine how Lambert, with his stronger emotions, felt right now. 

The truly unnerving thing was that the Trial seemed so _easy_ now. So many boys had died doing exactly what Lambert and Geralt now did with ease that Geralt's mind couldn't process what was happening. The rock faces which had once seemed so imposingly steep and high were now just a momentary inconvenience. The drowners which had once terrified him with their gutteral shrieks now just meant having to sharpen his sword again later. The echoing rock faces in the caves which had once made him sweat with the effort to soften his footfalls were now just any other cave. He had been through so many worse ones. 

Yet, the bones along the cavern floor didn’t all come from deer and goats. Many of them were from young Witchers, all gangly limbs and overlong fingers because they had never gotten to finish growing. Worse still were the littler skeletons, those who hadn't yet hit growth spurts and were still small. Geralt’s friends, Lambert’s friends. Their siblings, in a way. Those boys had been so close to freedom--and so close to the endless thankless exhaustion of the Path. 

Geralt didn’t ask why Vesemir and the other older Witchers had done these things to them. He just accepted it. Lambert, though--he always asked _ why, why, why. _ But Lambert never got the answers he wanted. Not from fate and not from Vesemir. That was why Geralt never asked. 

And as for Old Speartip himself...morbid stories of the massive cyclops had terrorized Geralt as a child, and the monster had killed most of Lambert’s cohort. Yet now Old Speartip was _just another cyclops._ Geralt had fought bigger in Skellige earlier just this month. Old Speartip fell to Geralt's sword, and as Geralt wiped the blade clean, he realized: any of the older Witchers could have come here at _any time_ and killed the beast if they had _cared_ to do so. But they hadn't. Maybe the way he killed the children had even been the point. 

Hell, if it had occurred to Geralt, he could have come here and killed the cyclops. He could have prevented what had happened to Lambert's cohort. But it had never occurred to him to do so, because Old Speartip was a part of the Trial of the Medallion the same as Vesemir himself. 

Watching Lambert spit on the great beast’s corpse and then harvest the body for ingredients got a sort of echoed satisfaction from Geralt. The slick sounds of Lambert’s knife cutting through its skin and guts echoed through the cavern where once young men’s screams had been. 

An uneasy turn of Geralt’s belly made him grimace and roll his shoulders. Was it the Cat potion he’d drunk to see in the pitch black? The stench of cyclops liver? The memories?

Was this ease with what had once been so hard for him a sign of progress or just numbness?

Lambert grinned as he wrapped and pocketed the single massive eyeball and portions of heart and liver. Every Witcher always had a few waxed-cloth bags somewhere on their person. 

They went on their way. 

When they stood before the altar, a wash of relief and delight filled Geralt, so intense that it left him momentarily stunned. This wasn’t a Trial anymore--they were adults, Geralt with more than seventy years of experience on the Path, Lambert with just shy of fifty. Getting here wasn’t the accomplishment it had been in their youth. 

But Geralt’s body didn’t seem to know that. All it knew was that the fear was over, and it reveled in the sharp night air sweeping the stench of the caverns off his clothes. Lambert smiled too, holding up the phylactery like a trophy before placing it on the altar. It took only a few flicks of his wrist and the braziers flared into life. 

“Plenty of space on the altar,” Lambert grinned, waggling his eyebrows at Geralt. 

Geralt stared at him in bafflement. 

“Our Medallions are already charged,” he replied, carefully, because maybe Lambert was baiting him into some joke. “Unless you have another magical artifact that needs it?”

“You’re so cute and stupid,” Lambert scoffed. “But maybe the rumor started after you left Kaer Morhen, old man. When I ran this Trial, there were stories that if you fucked on the altar, it got you high.”

With a shake of his head and a slap to Lambert's shoulder for this disrespect, Geralt turned away. 

“Ridiculous. They were bullshitting you.”

“Wanna try it?”

At this Geralt turned back to him, eyes narrowing. 

“Killing cyclopses and wading through your dead friends’ bones gets you in the mood?” he demanded, now even more sure that this was a setup for some jape. 

“No, it gets me mad as hell,” Lambert spat. “But I’m bored and we have to wait for the sacred magics to infuse the phylactery or whatever. Might as well distract myself from how much I want to kill Vesemir in his sleep.”

When the seconds stretched out and Lambert still didn’t laugh or say he’d been just kidding, Geralt finally realized the other man was serious. So Geralt actually thought it over. He'd fought enough "gods" not to believe in blasphemy. But it also didn't take a priest to know that this was a place of power. His medallion trembled against his sternum with the altar's proximity. 

“Fine,” Geralt said at last, throwing caution to the wind. “But don’t tell Vesemir about this.”

“I’ll tell him whatever I want, pretty boy. Now c’mon. Breeches down, over the altar you go!”

“Did you even bring--of course you did,” Geralt sighed as Lambert pulled a small tin of grease out of the satchel at his hip. “You had this planned all along, didn’t you?”

Strolling up into Geralt’s space, Lambert tapped one condescending fingertip against Geralt’s nose. “When that Sorceress of yours demanded I come here, I had to bribe myself somehow. And I’ll give you this much credit: your ass is every bit as good as the songs say it is.”

“The songs don’t--” Geralt started to say, and realized he’d already lost. There was no point contradicting Lambert. Besides, it was always possible Dandelion had composed an ode to Geralt's ass and just neglected to tell Geralt about it. It was the sort of thing he did. 

So Geralt instead did what he often resorted to with Lambert to render the man's company tolerable: Geralt unbuckled his own belt, flipped open the buttons of his fly, shuffled the leather and linen down his thighs, and bent over. The only difference between this and the last time they'd fucked was that now freezing night air whipped around Geralt's nethers so his balls pulled up tight against his body, cock tightening alongside them. 

But no sooner had Geralt touched the altar’s surface than he could feel the power of the thing, humming through his skin like a massive song somewhere deep below the earth. He wondered if he could learn the tune if he listened long enough. 

“This isn’t gonna pervert the flow of magics or something is it?” 

Lambert snorted, his own fastenings clinking. “If anything I figure it will do the magics some good to get laid through us. I mean people make virgin sacrifices for a reason, right?”

Grinning, Geralt turned to regard Lambert over his shoulder. “I hate to spoil your fantasy, but that ship has long since sailed. Or do you want me to pretend?”

“Ha-de-fuckin’-ha,” Lambert rolled his eyes. “It’s lucky you’re such a good lay. You’d be a lot less fun otherwise, Mister Prissy-Pants, all concerned about the _natural order of the world_ as you bend over to take it.”

“You’re lucky you have such a nice prick. Otherwise you’d get a lot less of this ass,” Geralt snapped right back, and then dropped his forehead to the freezing stone to wait as Lambert got himself hard. Lambert was a braver man than Geralt, trying to achieve an erection in this temperature. They were all used to the cold, having grown up in Kaer Morhen, but even so. 

Yet the feeling of power throbbed through Geralt’s palms, his belly, the edge of his hips where they pressed into the stone, the thin skin below his hairline. It was nothing like heat, and the flames did little to warm him, but the cold somehow grew more bearable anyway. Normally shivering would have set in by now, falling into stillness outdoors like this, but instead Geralt just felt beautifully calm. 

A loud groan escaped him when the tip of Lambert’s slicked cock notched against him. It slipped several times, nosing past where Geralt wanted it, before finally sliding home. The rest of Lambert’s body curved down after it, blanketing Geralt’s back. 

The hum intensified. The power rose to him as though a massive hand had reached up to cradle the entire underside of his body. 

“Well what do you know, I was right,” Lambert bragged, shoving the rest of the way in past the resistance. “You must be able to feel that too. The Circle of Elements likes this.”

Geralt said nothing. It took several seconds for him to even remember how to blink or breathe. How could Lambert still be talking while feeling this?

Lambert gave Geralt the courtesy of half a minute to adjust before starting into a steady, rolling fuck. Long sweeps back and forth inside Geralt, forearms braced on Geralt’s back, and it took remarkably little of this for Geralt’s body to wake up and respond. His cock hardened into the lingering warmth of his underclothes. He had angled himself to keep it well away from the stone, but a single thrust with a little too much vigor pressed him flat.

The touch of Geralt's cock against the altar electrified him even through all the layers. His gloved hands fisted tight, toes curling in his boots.

“Damn I’m full of good ideas,” Lambert laughed, punching a wild yelp out of Geralt with another hard thrust. “Nothing like fucking the famous White Wolf on the altar that used to haunt my nightmares. Take that, Trial of the Medallion!”

Geralt groaned. His spine arched as he helplessly tried to rub himself against something. But there was nothing, only the awkward folds of his clothing and the stone of the altar. 

The altar itself made that be enough. The bloom of climax spread through him like dawn’s light along the horizon, every corner of Geralt's mind suffusing with color. The image of the hand holding him tightened, _gripping_ him until he couldn’t even think anymore, couldn't do anything but shout and shiver and _come_. 

He’d barely finished before Lambert stood, pulling out and kicking at Geralt's heels. 

“Stand up a little higher. Get your seed on the altar itself this time,” Lambert demanded. “Bet it’ll like that too.”

The overwhelming throb that ran from Geralt's soles all the way to the crown of his head proved Lambert right again. To his left the phylactery glowed like the heart of a furnace. 

So Lambert stood back, waiting for Geralt to adjust himself. This soon after climax his movements were sluggish. But Geralt got his legs under himself, letting his head hang from his shoulders as he curled his tailbone down and shimmied to drop his trousers to his knees. Thankfully Lambert didn’t make him wait long, moving to stand right behind him as he shoved in once more. 

The hum intensified into a low roar. Geralt couldn’t hear it above his own heartbeat but he could _feel_ it. It waited below him, every bit as eager as he was. 

Hardly any time seemed to pass before Geralt whined, hands balling into fists as he shot straight onto the massive slab of granite. The phylactery flared, bright even through Geralt’s squeezed-shut eyelids, as all the fires in the braziers lept high. Lambert’s crow of triumph, followed by the thick wetness of his own climax, all seemed a part of it to Geralt. 

“I think the phylactery is plenty charged, don’t you?” Lambert said, lazily withdrawing and tucking himself away again before reaching out to pick up the little gold and alabaster box. It pulsed at his touch. Rather like Geralt himself. 

When Geralt straightened, his ears were full of ringing and sensation thrummed through his limbs. The stars seemed brighter, scents even sharper. 

Not even the trip back through the grim caverns dampened Geralt’s mood. 

“Damn, I think you were right,” he said when he collapsed into the prow of Lambert’s little boat. The world seemed to orbit around him--or maybe that was just the turning of the rudder guiding them out into the water. 

“Of course I was, but what about?”

“I’m _ very _ high." 

Lambert laughed at him. Right then Geralt felt too good to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also known as: Geralt And Lambert Use Sex to Cope With/Avoid Thinking About Their Immense Traumas


	26. Eskel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoops I tripped and fell in the feels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: I lifted some lines from the game in which Geralt jokes about Eskel's weight. In most cases I would have altered it to something else, knowing that weight loss/gain (and especially having someone thin joke about it) is a sensitive topic for many of us. But it seemed so in-character for these two, and so related to aspects of being a Witcher, that I left it in.

Geralt looked around the keep for Eskel but found him nowhere. He and Lambert must have returned to Kaer Morhen just after Eskel left. Given that it was just past four when they returned, Geralt let it be until later in the morning. 

By the time he woke up a few hours later, the high had worn off. At the time he’d been so out of it that he’d barely noticed how intense it was. But now, in retrospect, he could relish the lingering looseness of his limbs, the warmth of his fingers and toes, the sense of wellbeing and wholeness that was so rare in a Witcher’s life. If he could find a different path to the Circle of Elements, he would have to take Eskel there as soon as possible. 

With that in mind Geralt went out in search of Eskel. If Lambert were to be believed, Eskel too was on an errand for Yen.

Geralt could not help the buzz of nerves that tightened his belly. He almost regretted breakfast. It had been...what, two years since he had last seen Eskel? And at the time Geralt’s memories had been completely consumed by the amnesia the Wild Hunt had given him as a parting gift. Geralt had only been left with the vague sense that Eskel was to be trusted, nothing more. 

Which meant that it was actually four years, closer to five, since Geralt had truly known what they were to each other. To be so close to seeing him again, especially after a final ending to things with Yennefer, made Geralt sweat under his clothes. The eagerness gave a spring to his step. 

Tracking Eskel in the lands around Kaer Morhen brought back a rich rush of memories. Vesemir and the other older Witchers had sent the younglings out in pairs as part of their training. They were given no food or shelter. The first one to leave the keep was meant to find ways to protect himself in the wilderness around Kaer Morhen, while the second was meant to find him. Then both together would get through the night outdoors. 

Geralt and Eskel had often been paired with each other for these excursions. Even at that age they had worked well together: their natural competitiveness made them push each other and themselves hard, but their closeness and affection kept it from getting out of hand as it did with some of the other boys. 

A Witcher could be difficult to track if he set his mind to it, but Eskel clearly had nothing to hide on this outing. Judging by the prints, Eskel’s horse had been freshly shod. When Geralt came upon the horse himself, a beautiful black gelding, he stopped to greet the fine beast. He stood tied to a tree near a campfire, and by the campfire lay remainders of the supplies a Witcher would need to craft the oily toxins they applied to their swords. Looking them over, Geralt reckoned draconid oil. So, a reptile of some sort was Eskel's prey.

Further along the path Geralt found little cloven hoofprints alongside the flat press of Eskel's boots. The odor of goat still lingering in the air told Geralt that here Eskel had acquired live bait for something large. 

Kaer Morhen kept a small flock of goats--or rather, didn’t keep them, most of the year. A few had been purchased some decades or centuries back and let to roam the woods and hills near Kaer Morhen. Occasionally Witchers milked them, or had a favorite they kept in the castle courtyard, but mostly they were culled for meat before or during winter. They flocked to the keep in the coldest months, knowing they would find food and protection there. Examining the herd to weed out the sick, weak, undersized, and old ones would be someone’s job soon, as would killing, skinning, and draining all those thus selected. Witchers purchased many provisions from nearby villages before winter and brought them in themselves, but they also butchered and prepared their own smoked and dried meats as well as amassing a collection of local herbs and tubers that could be harvested in fall and kept during winter. Given how often Vesemir stayed at the keep these days, he also set by considerable stocks of preserves and pickles and other goods that would feed all of them for months. 

Eventually the goat's bleating led Geralt to the goat itself tied to a stake in the middle of a wide field. Geralt smiled to see his suspicions confirmed. 

And when Eskel himself stood up from the bushes nearby--the rush of pleasure and relief that went through Geralt beggared description. It was nearly as intense as last night’s high. He couldn't help his smile. 

“That’s supposed to be forktail bait,” Eskel called, apparently not caring if he drove off his prey. But then, if he was, they could wait in the bushes together. What was a long wait in such good company? “Apparently works for Witchers as well!”

Jogging over, Geralt’s heart pounded in a way that had nothing to do with the effort of going uphill. 

“Still following the instructions in Brother Adelbert’s Bestiary to the letter, I see!” Geralt shouted back.

As Geralt neared, Eskel grinned, the scarring that normally pulled his mouth into an involuntary sneer straightening with his look of pleasure. He held open his arms and Geralt went, curling himself up against Eskel's big body without trying to disguise his delight. 

“I see your memory’s back in full and sharp as ever, in spite of your years,” Eskel murmured against Geralt's ear. 

This too was familiar, the way they teased each other. Geralt grinned into Eskel’s hair before pulling away to get a better look at Eskel’s face. 

No new scars, thankfully, and the lines around Eskel’s eyes and brow were no deeper than Geralt remembered. 

“You’re as old as I am, wise guy,” Geralt replied. “Don’t let the white hair fool you.”

Eskel looked him over in return. Geralt knew that _ he _ looked older. Dying or almost dying or whatever he had done aged a man. 

“Good to finally see you again,” Eskel said at last when he finished his examination, still holding onto Geralt’s shoulders.

“You too,” Geralt sighed, as happy as he could remember being in...so long. “How are things?”

The years apart meant that Eskel would have so many new stories. Just as Geralt did. They had so much to say to one another. 

But Eskel only shrugged, dropping his hands to his sides. “Same old, same old. Another day, another drowner.”

Shaking his head incredulously, Geralt lifted an eyebrow at him. “That it? Drowners, really?”

Eskel turned, facing away from Geralt and toward the goat happily grazing in the field. “I’m a simple Witcher, Wolf. Don’t fight dragons, don’t fraternize with kings, and don’t sleep with Sorceresses...unlike some.”

He sounded almost angry. But probably it was just his usual teasing and Geralt was so nervous he was reading too much into it. Eskel wasn’t the sensitive type, and while he had sometimes confessed to being a little envious of what Geralt’s fame brought him, he wasn’t as green with it as Lambert was. 

So Geralt forced a chuckle. “Yen keeping you busy? I heard she arrived at the keep and started being her usual bossy self.”

“Shouting orders with just one foot out the teleport,” Eskel agreed. He let out an unhappy huff. “Times like these, I’m glad this ugly mug of mine keeps the women away.” 

Ah. So that was it. Eskel was not the sensitive type about most things, but he was _ extremely _ self-conscious about his facial scars. They had terrified Ciri when she’d first seen Eskel, to the extent that she had barely believed Geralt when he’d assured her that Eskel was as human as the rest of them. (Or, well, just a Witcher like the rest of them.) Other people in the world reacted with the same fear and revulsion--and bearing that sort of stigma for decades in addition to being a Witcher had taken a toll on Eskel. Until today, he hadn't even had Geralt's attentions for reassurance. 

He had never once believed Geralt when Geralt had tried to express (awkwardly, with little grace) that he did not mind the scars, and in fact even loved kissing the places on Eskel’s lips that were warped by it. His top lip especially, pulled upward by one of the deep gouges, felt beautiful against Geralt’s tongue. That Eskel’s kisses could not be mistaken for anyone else’s was wonderful to Geralt. He dreamed about those kisses sometimes. 

Strange for Eskel to be joking about women, though. Unlike both Geralt and Lambert, while Eskel slept with women on the rare occasions they offered, he felt no passion or desire for them otherwise. But perhaps his remark was just Eskel’s way of masking his own anxiety at seeing Geralt again.

“Come on, you’re a handsome guy in your own way,” Geralt smiled, relaxing now he was on familiar ground. 

An angry snort greeted this, now no longer hidden behind any ambiguity. “Geralt please. Cut the crap.”

Just as Geralt was trying to figure out how to address Eskel’s clear unhappiness, a forktail dove out of the sky and landed on the goat, sinking its teeth in with a rumble of satisfaction. Both their swords rang when drawn and they rushed over to it together. 

A few moments later, the terrified forktail lept back into the sky. Geralt had caught it a good blow on the wing and it was bleeding profusely. It wouldn’t go far. 

Eskel cussed at it. 

“Now we’ve gotta climb after it,” Eskel griped. “Ill-mannered reptile, can’t even die properly.”

“Bit of exercise will do you good,” Geralt joked.

Eskel had managed to gain a bit of weight somehow and that fact brought an added thrill of relief to Geralt's heart. It was so rare for Witchers to be well-fed and rested enough to gain weight, and Eskel deserved that. But Geralt couldn’t just _ say _ how happy it made him, that wasn’t how they worked. So he turned his admiring attention into ribbing.

“Excuse me?” Eskel snapped. When Geralt glanced at him, his gaze was met with a thunderous scowl.

“Well, you’ve rounded out,” Geralt laughed, confused by this response. “Still got some of last winter’s blubber on you!” That wasn’t true of course, any weight Eskel had gained was from his own hard work in earning coin and hunting to feed himself. But that was the nature of their joking rather than the kind of mockery Lambert engaged in: it was only fair to pick on each other in ridiculous, unserious ways.

“Speak for yourself, Funny Bunny,” Eskel grumbled, not sounding amused. 

Geralt blinked--no one had used that nickname in decades. When he’d been young and still losing teeth, his two front teeth had been fully grown in while the two surrounding incisors were still missing. He’d been a snarky little bastard at that age, so the name had been born: Funny Bunny. He’d hated it, enough to start fights with anyone who used it. Eskel had almost never used it, while Lambert had heard about it decades later and called him nothing else for years. 

The memories tumbled over each other in Geralt’s head and he felt unsteady, like the ground had moved underneath him. Had something happened to Eskel while Geralt had been away?

“Not scared to leave your horse down below?” Geralt asked, trying to change the subject. “Forktail could decide to have a go at him.”

Eskel huffed dismissively at this. “Skorpion’s a warhorse. A purebred Kaedwini. He’ll be fine.”

Then he said nothing more. His silence pressed on Geralt, suffocating him. 

Thankfully they soon found the lair where the injured beast had fled. After dispatching it, Eskel pulled out two vials for samples and pressed then into Geralt's hand before walking away, making as if to go out to the entrance of the cave. 

“Let’s get what we came for and get out of here. Collect the spinal fluid. Cut into its back, just below the skull.”

Geralt gaped at Eskel’s retreating shape. Eskel already knew Geralt had recovered his memories, so why was he treating Geralt like a rank novice? Or was this another attempt at a joke?

“Gonna tell me witch side of the knife to start with next?”

“The _ sharp _ one,” Eskel spat, and he sounded really scornful, not just joking. “C’mon, hurry up.”

“Wait, Eskel!” Geralt called.

Eskel paused but didn’t turn around. “What.”

“What’s wrong?” Geralt demanded. Their hunt had gone perfectly! Neither of them injured, the beast dead at their feet still intact in all the ways that mattered. It had bled out from an arterial wound, preserving all its organs for whatever Yen wanted. “What the fuck is going on?”

The reflective membranes in the backs of Eskel’s wide, furious eyes flashed in the darkness as he rounded on Geralt. Eskel strode up, getting into Geralt's space, looming.

“I don’t know, Wolf, why don’t _ you _ tell me? Use that famous mind of yours, guess what’s wrong!”

“I--I don’t--” Geralt stammered, shocked by this response.

But now Eskel shoved him hard in the chest. Geralt almost tripped over the forktail’s sprawling wing, his heel hooking into a fold of the patagium.

“What could I _possibly_ have to be angry or hurt about, right? Shouldn’t I be happy, groveling for the scraps of your attention left over after everyone else in the damn world has you? All I’ve ever had to offer you was convenience, and don’t you just fuckin’ love to rub my face in it.” Now his lip actually curled, the scar revealing even more of his sharp teeth. 

“What are you even talking about!” Geralt growled, automatically defensive in the face of this accusation. 

_ “Four and a half years _ it’s been since I last saw you and you knew who I was, Wolf,” Eskel said, voice now low with fury. “Four years ago, you know what happened? I heard you _ died, _ stabbed to death in some backwater! Guess how that felt! And who was by your side? Yen. Who did Ciri rescue alongside you and send off with you to some fairly-tale land so you could finally be together? Yen!” He jabbed Geralt in the chest again. “I know she's young, but I _wonder_ where Ciri got the impression that Yen is the only important one in your life? You never tell anyone about me, not even your _ goddamned daughter! _ She thought _ Yen _ was all you’d ever need for a happy ending, and probably she was right!”

At this, Eskel threw his arms out wide. “And what happened next to the Witcher nobody sings ballads about? Just listen, this is the really good part. A miracle happened and I got you back! I fucking _ wept _ for two years, Wolf, figuring I’d finally lost you forever, and you know I’m not prone to crying. But I just had to swallow that and go on working, because most of us don’t have endless friends and lovers to help us like you do. And then--and then!” Eskel let out a wild, braying laugh. “Then I find you wandering half-naked in the woods around Kaer Morhen! The worst part was that for a little while I felt like the luckiest man alive--how many Witchers can say they’ve lost a friend only to later _ get him back? _ But hey. Fate loves to make jokes at my expense. So I get you back--and you don’t fucking remember me. So I have to just...just...” His voice tightened, wavering. 

Geralt’s impulse was to reach out and touch, to comfort, but now he didn’t dare. He had seen Eskel angry with people who jilted him out of his agreed fee, but never directed at Geralt himself. And he had never seen Eskel emotional like this. 

A moment later Eskel’s face cleared into emptiness. But when he spoke again, his voice sounded no calmer. 

“So then I have to hide from you that we’ve been lovers since you first found out what your prick was for. That _ I’d _ been the one following you around, _ yearning _ after you, for damn near a century. Because I’m trying to be respectful, right? Trying not to take advantage. But then Triss walks in and you fall into bed with her before I could so much as blink. With _ her, _ not me. Because you _ never goddamn pick me!” _

“I didn’t remember,” Geralt protested. Yen had been angry at him for this too, but it wasn't his fault. “She asked, and I didn’t know any better, and--”

“I have never cared about you having other lovers. Or I've tried not to, but you make it damn hard! Did you ever even want me at all?” Esked demanded. “Was it _ always _ just convenience to you? I have no idea. I’ve never known.”

Geralt stared at him. His heart thundered under his armor and now matter how many breaths he drew he felt dizzy and sick. 

“How could you not know how much I love you?” he whispered.

Eskel rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable. Really, Wolf? You’ve used that word with me, what, eleven times? In almost ninety years. Meanwhile, you’ve run yourself ragged chasing after every Sorceress who crossed your path. And Yen--the fuckin’ awful thing you did to her, as if you didn’t already have someone waiting for you! Did you ever think about how that felt for _ me, _ hearing you’d used _a godsdamn djinn_ to bind someone else's life to yours?”

Geralt had considered it sometimes, but Eskel had always seemed fine. And Geralt had never asked. 

Shaking his head, Eskel let out a bitter laugh. “She’s always treated you like shit. Maybe because of what you did, or maybe because that’s just how she treats people. Maybe that's what you like, and you'd want me if I treated you worse! Because no matter how bad it got, you _always_ went back. I get that I’m not rich or beautiful, and I’m a _ man _ who can’t even marry you. Compared to Yen, what can I even give?” His hands clenched into fists. “Hell, what the fuck have _ you _ ever given _ me, _ compared to what you gave to Yen when she didn’t even want you?” 

Geralt pressed a hand to his mouth. He feared he might be sick. 

“And now this, today,” Eskel finished, voice lowering again. “I thought to myself, sure, it’ll be hard to see him again after everything that’s happened. Geralt won’t bring it up on his own, and he won’t want to talk about it because he never wants to talk about anything that matters. But I love him and he’s all I’ve got. And what do you fuckin’ _ stink _ of as soon as you walk up to me?” Eskel gave a mirthless chuckle. “You’ve not been back _ a day _ and already someone else has fucked you, because everyone wants to fuck _you._ And you went to even Lambert before me.”

“I didn’t--he asked--” Geralt protested, but weakly. 

“You always have an excuse, Wolf. And that’s the thing, they’re always real excuses, so I always have to be understanding. See, I know Lambert. Better than you do, even, since I’ve got more patience for him. I know Yen had him running up to the Circle of Elements, and I know the direct path to it got buried under an avalanche last year, which means he had to run the goddamn Trial of the Medallions again when nearly all the kids died in Lambert’s year. So probably he just wanted some comfort with somebody he knew. And when do you ever, _ ever _ say no to anyone who wants you? I mean you’ve never said no even to me, and you can’t possibly want me like I want you.”

Screwing up his courage, Geralt turned. “No, that’s...that’s not true,” he protested. There were a hundred things he needed to say now, to tell Eskel--but the words got lost before they reached his tongue. Just like they always did when he was truly afraid. “That’s not true,” he repeated helplessly. 

For what felt like a long time they stood together in the darkness, just breathing. Then Eskel walked away again. 

“Nevermind. This was stupid of me. I’m glad you’re still alive.” 

And with that he was gone, leaving Geralt with a dead forktail and a heart that felt like it was breaking all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll spoil my own fic here by saying that this ship is gonna get a happy ending. But I realized as I started writing this chapter that I haven't read/seen any Geralt/Eskel fic in which Eskel is hurt and doubtful of their relationship--even though he has so, so much reason to be. In the game, the way Eskel interacts with Geralt at this point in the plot comes across as both angry and self-conscious. So while I had initially planned to have Geralt's reunion with Eskel be sweet and soft, once I started writing, I found that it felt disingenuous to Eskel's character. Eskel mostly gets written as "Geralt's sure thing" and I wanted to explore how that might feel for Eskel himself.


	27. Geralt alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I promise there will be a happy ending to this, but sometimes you gotta sit down and realize how bad you fucked up first
> 
> Also, content warning for some...internalized homophobia I guess? Heterosexism?

For a while Geralt retreated into the mindless comfort of work. He tapped the forktail for spinal fluid--trying and failing not to think about how he was doing what Eskel had so harshly demanded--and then capped the bottle and tucked it away. 

Because he couldn’t face the world yet, he butchered the forktail for other ingredients as well. He cut out its eyes and portions of its liver, wrapped them, and tucked them away. 

By the time he finished this, his hands were messy, sticky with blood and viscera. So he went to find water in which to wash. 

Even once he was clean he sat by the stream for a long time, just watching the light play over the surface. 

Geralt could barely even grasp the enormity of Eskel’s words, but he knew he had to. Eskel was too important.

The awful thing that Geralt suddenly had to admit to himself was that at least in some ways, Eskel had been right. After so many decades together, Geralt had just assumed that  _ nothing _ could come between them and Eskel would always be there no matter what. That this relationship, at least, required no effort on Geralt’s part. 

Part of Geralt protested every time his thoughts arrived at this conclusion. If Eskel had been angry for so long and had felt his needs to be so unmet, then he should have said so! Every Witcher knew the world gave you nothing you didn’t demand and fight for!

Except that wasn’t true or fair. Eskel had always been so generous, so ready to give, while Geralt found it so much harder. There was a reason he’d gone back to Yennefer over and over, and while he now knew that the spell was a great part of it, the other part was that she  _ demanded _ her due and accepted nothing less. Geralt had found it flattering to be wanted by such a person, and had found her commanding ways reassuring even as he’d also hated it. With her he hadn’t needed to fret over how to behave. 

Yet even Yen had hated how little initiative he took with her, hadn’t she?

This was the point in Geralt’s thinking, as he stared at the flowing water, where he always realized how pathetic he was: angry at a man he loved for not  _ forcing _ Geralt to treat him better. Was that at the heart of why he’d made his wish with Yen? That, like her, he’d wanted a love he didn’t have to work at and fret over, that would  _ always _ be there no matter how poorly he behaved? If so, why had he even made the wish when he believed he already had that in Eskel? Had Geralt known on some level that even Eskel was  _ not _ that? 

Or was it just that he’d valued Yen higher because she was a woman? The boiling, terrible thought that had burned at him ever since his return to Novigrad was that  _ a Witcher could marry a woman and settle down. _ He had never known it to happen, never even  _ heard _ of such a thing before, but Karadin had done it. If Geralt had treated Yen better, if Triss had not taken advantage of him, or even if he were to meet another woman who would have him--several women in recent memory sprang to mind--then Geralt himself could do that if he chose. He could live out his own fairy tale, coming at last to the happily ever after so many years of toil. 

He could not have that with a man. 

Here, too, Geralt found himself angry at Eskel. How  _ dare _ Eskel be angry at him just for acknowledging the way of the world? Of course things had been different between them than between a man and a woman! 

Geralt rubbed his face with his hands at this, because yet another an uncomfortable truth lay there: that if he had ever cared to try, that there were a hundred things he could have done to show commitment and love for Eskel which Geralt had never done. And any protests about them being two men and thus unable to commit in the same way was ridiculous. Witchers so often operated outside the law, owing allegiance to no one but themselves, that it was pure self-deceit to pretend that just because there could be no  _ legal _ binding of two men, that they could not make any proclamations or gestures of that kind. 

Geralt stood to stretch his legs, wandering around the streambed before settling again, this time with his back against a tree. He felt so tired.

He never let himself truly consider a happy ending. Oh, he loved the ideal of it when it was blurry and without detail, but what about in reality? Being trapped in one place, with one person he saw day-in and day-out, who was never forced to miss him in order to make him seem better? Would he be able to sustain desire for someone he didn’t have to leave? Would he want a life without the variety of wandering? Without hardship and absence to make the heart grow fonder, would anyone actually want  _ him? _

He found he was not certain of the answer. Not even with Eskel. They had grown up together, but they had always known they would be separated on the Path. And they had spent many winters together too, months side by side in Kaer Morhen’s walls, yet there too they knew that afterward they would not see one another again for months and possibly years. Under those conditions, people tolerated behaviors they would otherwise find intolerable. 

And Eskel was not wrong that Geralt rarely if ever actually said the word ‘love’ aloud, even when Eskel did. Geralt had believed it to be a comfortable inequality between them, that Eskel said it and Geralt showed it in other ways, but apparently not. Apparently that had left Eskel too much room for doubt. They had become lovers so young that their flirtation had started as (and often remained as) teasing and jokes. But perhaps it was time for Geralt to realize that they were now old men with very different needs. 

Geralt wondered if things had been different before Eskel’s scars. Before then, Eskel had been of average handsomeness, neither a beauty to sing ballads about nor anything unpleasant to look upon. But after the scars...

Afterward, his life had been harder. And while Geralt had shown just as much physical affection as ever, and even made a point to kiss and touch the marks, that had clearly not been enough. Why had he thought it would be? When the whole world told Eskel day in and day out that he was hideous, why had Geralt thought that a few kisses would be enough to convince him otherwise?

Perhaps Geralt had already ruined this relationship too. The thought left him unmoored, adrift and afraid in a way even the ending with Yennefer had not. 

Sighing, Geralt rose to his feet. He wished, sometimes, that he were capable of tears. Humans spoke of the relief of crying, and he had seen it often with rescues. The body shook, the eyes cried, the throat moaned, and afterward they were better. 

He wouldn’t know. That capacity had been burned out of him long ago.


	28. Talking to Eskel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's weird how much conversation and interaction I can lift from the games with few alterations. 
> 
> Also: I know nothing about horses or riding, so this is probably super inaccurate. Oh well! I presume you're not here for hyper-realistic horse stories.

When Geralt finally made his way back to Kaer Morhen, Eskel was nowhere to be found. But as there were only prints leading into the keep, not out, that meant Eskel had to be somewhere, even if it wasn’t in any of the main rooms or even the bedrooms. 

Geralt fed himself first. He was old enough to know not to attempt anything difficult on an empty stomach. 

When Geralt found Eskel at last, it was in an abandoned wing of the keep. He heard Eskel’s breathing and movements through the door. He knew Eskel could hear him too, so he didn’t wait outside. 

Merely opening to the door to where he was left Geralt gagging in disgust as the odor of rotting flesh rolled over him. When he managed to master himself to process anything else, he saw why. 

Eskel had the corpse of a massive ekkimara laid out on a table. How he had gotten the thing to Kaer Morhen, Geralt couldn’t guess, unless the creature had taken up residence inside the keep itself during the time Vesemir had been away with Geralt. And while the cool air of the keep had kept the rot from progressing with the usual speed, there were still maggots and an unbelievable stench.

Eskel glanced up when Geralt entered but he didn’t meet Geralt’s eyes. 

“This one was quicker than most,” Eskel explained, gesturing at the corpse. “Quicker and stronger. Found it here when I arrived last month. Almost got me, so I wanna examine it thoroughly.”

Ah. So they weren’t talking about the fight yet. Geralt knew he could not, _ would _ not let this drop as he had so many other things. But perhaps a little while together as just Witchers would do them good. Put them back on even footing.

“What have you found?” Geralt asked. 

“In its gut I found a few months-worth of undigested food. Plus human hair, a belt buckle, a few coppers, and a gold ring.” Eskel lifted the final item from the tabletop. Even through the smeared filth, the band gleamed in the torchlight. “Wanna give it to Yennefer?” he smiled, but his eyes looked miserable. “Oughtta be as good as new if you polish it a bit.”

Ah. So they _ were _ talking about it, just not directly. 

“No thanks. She only wears silver,” Geralt replied. “Look, Eskel--”

“Eh, it’s her loss.” Eskel set the ring back down. He kept his eyes on the opened abdomen where the Ekkimara’s guts lay on display. “The thing was wearing an earring too. Other jewelry. Guess they’re like magpies, just like shiny things--”

“Eskel.” 

Geralt didn’t have to say more. Eskel stopped babbling. He took a deep breath--not a good idea, in this room--and then seemed to realize that for himself. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, and strode over to the door. Geralt followed him down the hall, where the corridor of abandoned rooms led into the crumbling staircase back down to the rest of the castle. No sooner had they arrived at the landing below, sunny as the light came in through the windows, when Eskel stopped dead. 

“I’m sorry, okay,” Eskel burst out, and Geralt’s eyes went wide. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. Just--just forget it if you can.”

“No chance of that, short of more amnesia,” Geralt replied. “And why the hell are _ you _ being so apologetic? I’m the one with shit to apologize for.”

Eskel braced his hands on his hips, determinedly looking anywhere but at Geralt. Geralt had not seen the man this uncomfortable since he’d first been scarred. “No, no, it’s--”

“You were right,” Geralt interrupted, pushing through the sharp pain in his chest and the shivery feeling of fear. Eskel fell silent, chewing on his bottom lip. “You were right about...about nearly all of it. I’ve treated you badly. The last few years especially must have been hell for you, yet I came back thinking only of me. Just about the only thing you got wrong is how much I…” Geralt swallowed. Why were the words so hard to say? “How much I love you. Even if I haven't told you enough.”

Cautious, Geralt moved closer to the other man. When Eskel didn’t flinch away, Geralt took his hand, tentatively lacing their fingers together. Geralt knew Eskel would be dirty and sticky from poking around the ekkimara, and he was, but that didn’t matter. They were both Witchers. 

“It’s fine,” Eskel said with dull, resigned misery, his face blank and lax. 

Geralt felt sick, hearing the words. Part of Geralt still protested, wanting to defend himself from Eskel’s judgment. Geralt faced so much hatred in the world that anything approaching scorn got automatic dismissal. 

But only a fool refused feedback that would save his life, and while maybe Geralt’s life didn’t depend upon fixing this, it sure _ felt _ like it did. 

“I don’t know how to make it up to you,” Geralt admitted. “We got trained in so many things, but not in this. I thought about getting you flowers, but that just seemed silly. I know you like Mahakaman spirits, and I brought you a bottle, but I wanted to have this conversation sober.”

“I don’t need anything,” Eskel lied, and Geralt _ knew _ it was a lie and hated it. “It’s just good to have you back.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t have shouted at me,” Geralt insisted, feeling like he was tracking down something elusive. “What the fuck is this, Eskel.”

Grimacing, Eskel tried to pull away. But Geralt hung on, bringing his other hand to grip Eskel’s wrist.

Eskel relented. His hand was cold to the touch.

“I don’t have anyone else,” he said at last. “You have so many people. Everybody wants you all the time. You always come back with new stories of someone falling in love with you, and I can’t blame them. But me--nobody wants me. Nobody ever wanted me.”

The words sat in Geralt’s belly like stones. 

“I have wanted you my whole life,” Geralt protested. 

At this, Eskel’s eyes hardened. “You want me when nobody else is around, Geralt. And now that Yen is here too, do I even have a chance?”

Ah. That was right. Yen wouldn’t be advertising that she had broken the spell and that as a result they were no longer in love. And nobody else had been with them in Skellige to know. 

“We’re not together anymore,” Geralt explained. 

But Eskel just let out a humorless snort. “You’ve split up how many times now? I give it a week before you’re up in the tower with her.”

“No, truly this time,” Geralt insisted, both insulted at Eskel’s doubt and well aware that it was merited. “She...she found another djinn. Removed the spell.” 

When Eskel stared at him, wide-eyed, Geralt swallowed. “It, uh. Turns out that most of what was going on between us was the spell.”

Eskel said nothing to this. Just stared. 

“I’m not lying,” Geralt offered. “I know that...that after so long, you have no reason to believe me. But me and Yen are...are not, anymore.”

He had expected Eskel to be relieved. But instead Eskel’s brows drew down and he calmly detached Geralt’s hands from his and stepped away. 

“Right. So now she doesn’t want you, I’m what’s leftover. Makes sense now.”

“That is not what I meant or what I said,” Geralt said sharply. “I don’t know how to get you to believe me!”

For several long, silent heartbeats they were silent. 

“I don’t know how to believe you either,” Eskel sighed. “Not anymore. It was easier to forgive and forget when you were dead. Or when you had forgotten me. Now you’re alive and remembering and everything is exactly how it’s always been.”

In desperation, Geralt cast about for ideas, but all he could think of was how much he wanted to escape. So he pulled at Eskel’s arm. 

“Let’s get out again,” Geralt pleaded. “Away from that smell and this place.”

“Where?” Eskel asked, sounding genuinely curious. To Geralt's surprise, he allowed himself to be led.

“Who cares? Anywhere you want to go.”

The silence between them as they got down to the stables together was uncomfortable. Saddling up again in silence was uncomfortable. But then they got out on the road together, Roach and Scorpion sizing each other up as they cantered, both horses enjoying the jaunt out into the late fall daylight, the discomfort eased. 

Finally Eskel told the story of how he’d gotten Skorpion: where most Witchers ended up with children of surprise, Eskel had wound up with a _ horse _ of surprise, having asked a knight he’d saved in the woods to give him what he did not yet know he had. Turned out his mare had foaled. 

“A destined pair, you two,” Geralt grinned. “What made you try the law of surprise again? Thought your first time was awful enough not to venture a repeat.”

Eskel, like Geralt, had once invoked the law of surprise and wound up being owed a child. He had avoided the entire kingdom, even at great personal cost, for two decades--until the young woman had found him. She had been furious at Eskel’s refusal to take her in during her time of need and had torn his face apart. Eskel would bear the mark of her misery and abandonment until he died. 

“Yeah, uh.” Eskel grimaced. “I did it while you were...dead. At that point, I figured things couldn’t get much worse.”

Geralt tightened his hands on the reins. How did one apologize for dying? It hadn’t been his fault, but so many of Eskel’s feelings _were_ Geralt’s fault. 

“Hey, whaddaya say to a little race?” Eskel asked then, shocking Geralt out of his rumination. “Maybe see who’s faster--Roach or Skorpion. And who’s the better rider.”

When Geralt turned to look at the other man, he found Eskel’s face full of mischief, gold eyes narrowed as he invited Geralt to recklessness. 

It was like being twelve again. Nineteen. Thirty-seven. Gods, he could still feel so _young_ with Eskel. It was stupid idea, risky--all it would take was one hoof landing wrong at the speeds they both knew they’d go. They were more than old enough to know not do things like this anymore. 

Geralt’s face spread into a grin. “Not really a challenge,” he replied, which was the expected response. “I could beat you riding a lame sow. But why not.”

“You’re a lame sow yourself!” Eskel shot back, a weak rejoinder, but insults had never been Eskel’s strong suit. That was Lambert. “First one to the lake wins.”

“On the count of three,” Geralt said, shifting his seat. “One, two--”

And they were off. Roach took several seconds longer to respond but that didn’t matter. Skorpion might be a purebred Kaedwini, but Geralt had picked Roach for her endurance. Skorpion was a sprinter and Roach a distance runner. 

All Geralt saw was the beaten dirt track and Eskel pulling away ahead of him. The wind tore through his hair and Roach’s mane. They became one great animal surging through the bright fall sunlight. 

By the time they neared the lake, Skorpion was tiring while Roach still surged along at her steady pace. Eskel tried to prompt Skorpion faster again but Skorpion outright refused, turning his ears back and stopping dead in the road. 

Geralt flew past, crowing his victory--and realized too late that Roach was prepared to charge right into the lake. 

Which she did. Water plumed upward, soaking Geralt instantly as the rushes slapped at him. One caught him across the face and he yelped as Roach finally seemed to realize that she did not wish to continue anymore. She slowed to a sedate walk, now up to her shoulders in the water, before turning around to meander into the shallows. 

Geralt heard Eskel’s laughter as he wiped lakewater out of his own eyes. His boots might as well be waterskins now, his clothes stuck to him all over, and his sword harness chafed against one of his chest scars. 

“I think you won, Wolf,” Eskel mocked. “To the winner go the spoils, and all that.”

“Are you here now? Finally. Took you long enough,” Geralt sniped back. 

“Decided in my wisdom to allow you victory. By which I mean wet breeches.”

“You mean Skorpion decided. Nice handling of your horse, by the way.”

He worried that this jest was a little too serious and would sour the mood, but Eskel only laughed again. 

Geralt steered Roach over to the abandoned fishing cottage on the lakeside. The walls were caving in but a hitching post still stood outside the cottage, back from when they had been children and had often ridden here to fish together. 

Once Roach had been tied, Geralt unslung his swords, pulling them from the scabbards to allow both metal and leather to dry. Then he stripped off his own clothes, quick and business-like, and carried his sopping armful to the wooden docks around the house. He felt Eskel’s eyes on him every step of the way.

Most of the docks had collapsed over the decades, subsiding into the muck and reeds. But there was still a surviving section on the far side of the house, facing West. Laying out his things on the ancient wood, Geralt spread himself out too. As he and Lambert had just been through here last night, any resident lake-dwelling monsters had either been culled or fled. Which meant that they could relax, as much as a Witcher ever relaxed his guard. 

Only a minute later Eskel waded out after him barefoot and sans breeches. His shirt hung just far enough to preserve his modesty, but not enough to hide his thick bare thighs from Geralt’s appreciative view. 

The dock groaned under their combined weight. Geralt half wondered if they’d both end up soaked in the frigid water. But as they settled in side by side, sunning themselves, the dock seemed willing to hold on for one more day. 

“Gonna have lichen and splinters stuck to your ass,” Eskel pointed out as he spread his own breeches to sit upon.

Geralt just nodded. Behind them Roach and Skorpion whickered, calming down from the race. 

They subsided into the quiet noises of the lake together. The heat of the sun almost precisely countered the cold of the fall air, leaving Geralt perfectly content.

An unnamed amount of time passed that way, again wordless. Perhaps both of them were thinking. Or maybe that was just Geralt. His thoughts slowed and slowed, mind taken up with listening to the noises of birds and frogs and insects. 

“If I had been a woman,” he asked at last, dreamy with his eyes closed, “would you have married me?”

“Yes,” Eskel said instantly. 

Geralt wasn’t sure what answer he had expected, but a quick agreement with no qualifications had not been it. 

“Thought you didn’t want women that way?” He blinked. The sun was now at an angle where he could avoid getting it in his eyes by looking up, so he craned his neck to look at Eskel. 

Eskel regarded him with calm golden eyes. 

“I don’t,” he agreed. “I’m not like you, Wolf.”

“But you’d marry me if I was a woman,” Geralt insisted, knowing he was being stupid but unwilling to stop pressing. 

“I’d marry you no matter what. If I could.”

Geralt subsided back into his warmed strip of dock. With that monumental statement hanging between them, and his limbs still lax, the next words just seemed to shape themselves in Geralt’s mouth without his effort. 

“If I were to have my pick,” he murmured. “If I could have any man who looked like anything. I’d always pick ones like you. Scars and all.” He’d only half known it himself before he said it, but now it seemed obvious. He made a crooked smile in self deprecation. “I end up picking men like you most of the time anyway, without half trying. Got your very own trained wolf.”

“Stop it,” Eskel said, but softer now than when Geralt had complimented him earlier. There was no anger in his tone. Just that sad refusal. 

“Not gonna stop being honest,” Geralt said, words slowing down still more. “I know I sleep with too many people. But at least that means I have the knowledge to say what’s good. You were my first and you’re still one of the best.”

“You’re just easy,” Eskel denied. 

Geralt considered being offended. But he was too comfortable, and anyway it was true. 

“Still know what’s good. And the best...the best thing about you is that you know me. Better than anyone else ever has. Better than anyone else ever will. Even Yen, and she read my mind.” 

Geralt realized, then, what he had to say next. He lifted his right arm, closest to Eskel, and lay the back of his hand against Eskel’s bare shin. He pressed one finger into the bone there, wanting to feel the real, solid shape of him after their years apart.

“I want to know you as well as you know me,” Geralt confessed. “I haven’t done a good job of it. I want to do better. I don’t want you to have to hide anymore.”

Eskel sucked a breath through his teeth before blowing it out through his pursed lips. 

“You wouldn’t like me,” Eskel told him finally, with all the cold certainty of self-loathing. “You like that I don’t ask for much. I take whatever you’re willing to give.”

Geralt thought about getting up. He thought about staring Eskel down and making a fight out of it, getting angry and loud and making Eskel believe him that way. 

But he didn’t think it would do any good. Words were cheap anyway. People lied to Witchers all the time--about their motives, about how much they’d pay, about everything. 

“If you could have everything you want from me, with me,” Geralt began instead, “what would it even be?”

A long pause followed his question, interrupted only by the early crickets and a few birdcalls. 

Then Eskel laughed. A gravelly belly laugh that shook his leg under Geralt’s hand. 

“You got me there,” he said. “I don’t even know.”

Geralt understood that. He thought about his own realization about happily ever after and how formless and unexamined that dream had always been. He thought about how Vesemir and all the others had trained them out of their own wanting. He thought about the tremendous sum Emhyr had paid him to find Ciri, still only half the amount he promised for her return, which Geralt had buried in the wilderness. He thought about Ciri as a Witcher like them. He thought about Ciri as the Empress. 

“I want to find out what you want,” Geralt concluded. “Then let’s see if we can do that.”

Eskel reached down and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. That seemed like a good sign.


	29. Eskel, waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for, uh. Breathplay I guess? This chapter is basically just D/s smut. 
> 
> Canonically if you're in a romance with Yennefer, she's the one who pulls Geralt aside to fuck him at this point. But that's obviously not where I'm going here.

Having Eskel and Yennefer in the same room was excruciating enough. Yennefer pointedly did not look at anyone but Geralt and Vesemir, and her eyes narrowed when looking even at Geralt. Having Eskel, Yennefer, Lambert, and Vesemir in the same room, with Eskel blank-faced and unreadable, Yennefer silently unhappy, Lambert smirking at Yennefer and clearly attempting to psychically communicate _ I fucked your man _ to her in the loudest possible way, and Vesemir pointedly ignoring everyone else except where necessary to talk about the problem at hand…

Geralt had never seriously considered the merits of a monogamous lifestyle. While the older Witchers had never explicitly said it, it was considered a very un-Witcherly thing to do. But in that moment, Geralt found himself wishing for it. 

At least Letho and Keira weren’t here. Geralt supposed he had to be thankful for small blessings. 

When Vesemir departed, Eskel pulled Geralt away into the bedrooms. He didn’t have to say anything for Geralt to know at once what he wanted. He continued to say nothing as he closed the door behind them, just pushed Geralt down on his knees and held him there by his hair as Eskel undid his breeches one-handed. 

The swell of Eskel’s wakening cock outlined through the layers of cloth already had Geralt’s mouth watering and his own body responding in kind. And when Eskel’s grip tightened in Geralt's hair almost to hurting, pulling him close to breathe the clean warm smell of Eskel without actually allowing him to have it--

Geralt groaned. His mouth fell open. He barely restrained himself from reaching out with his tongue. 

“Been so long I’d almost forgotten how good you look like this,” Eskel smiled. 

“You should do it more often, give your aging memory some helpful reminders,” Geralt replied, automatic.

The light slap this earned him was every bit as playful as the teasing, only hard enough for the slightest sting. Geralt bit his lip, eyes fluttering closed, so filled with anticipation that he could barely breathe. 

Because Eskel had a point: it had been far, far too long since Geralt had been with him. It didn’t matter the specifics of what they did tonight. He knew what Geralt loved and Eskel would make it good. 

Eskel’s thumb pushed through Geralt’s lips, the nail probing at Geralt’s teeth till he dropped his jaw and let Eskel in. The callused pad of his thumb pressed on Geralt’s tongue, swirling there, feeling the softness of him. Geralt’s mouth watered in response, wetting up immediately. 

He curled his tongue around that one digit. But Eskel teased them both with it, feeling along the silky insides of Geralt’s cheeks, stroking slick over Geralt’s lips, shoving two long fingers against the back of Geralt’s tongue till he twitched, pulling on the harsh grip on his hair. Savoring what was on offer before he had it. 

Geralt’s hands gripped tight on his knees, which were already hurting on the hard stone. He’d have bruises by the end of this. Maybe Eskel would press on them. 

The thought made Geralt’s cock twitch. It slithered along his thigh, already sticky.

_Imagine having this all the time,_ a voice whispered in the back of Geralt’s mind. _Imagine traveling with him, or even living with him. Imagine every day with someone who knows you this well. _

Eskel’s fingertips circled around and around on the back of Geralt’s tongue, trying to make him gag, and Geralt whimpered helplessly. 

He could smell Eskel’s arousal. Geralt wanted him so badly that his belly tightened and sweat broke out along his hairline despite the chill. When Eskel finally coaxed the first choking sound out of him, it was at least partly because Geralt felt half-sick with desire anyway. Eskel’s grip on Geralt’s hair tightened, aching-harsh, till Geralt squirmed. 

His mind went blank, empty of everything but the smell of desire, the pain of his scalp and knees, and the throbbing of his neglected prick.

Finally, finally Eskel pulled Geralt forward, rubbing the underside of his cock against Geralt’s tongue. The salty taste of him got another noise from Geralt. 

“Get it slick,” Eskel demanded, loosening his hold to allow movement.

Geralt obeyed, laving over the veins, the loose skin, pulling the saliva into the front of his mouth until he finally finished his task. Geralt's neck heated with anticipation. 

And he got what he wanted: Eskel pushed deep, sliding into him. Geralt tightened his lips on that perfect familiar shape, subsiding further into it. He wanted to touch himself. He didn’t dare. It was a game they played: Eskel well aware of the wanting, clearly able to see Geralt’s erection, and doing nothing about it or even punishing Geralt if he himself tried. 

He loved the waiting. 

“Relax,” Eskel purred. “You know what comes next.”

Geralt did. He inhaled deeply, leaning forward, pushing himself down on Eskel and straightening his neck a little more. At last Eskel stopped flirting with the back of his throat and eased in.

A ripple of protest went through Geralt, earning him a grunt of satisfaction from the other man, but Eskel just kept pushing until at last he seated himself with Geralt’s mouth pressed into the soft curls.

“Good lad,” Eskel praised, bringing up his other hand to stroke Geralt’s face. Lashes fluttering closed, Geralt’s whole mind focused on the tender caress over the stretched corners of his mouth, his eyelids, the opening of his ear. 

Eskel rocked his hips, just a little, just enough to slide in small increments. And he held himself deep, long past when any normal human would have become desperate, until even Geralt looked up at him with pleading eyes, hands wrapping around Eskel’s calves to beg for mercy. 

It was when Eskel withdrew, shaft hot against Geralt’s lips from Geralt’s own insides, that Geralt finally choked. His body shook, helpless, as he wheezed. He swallowed and breathed, leaning his forehead against Eskel’s hip, lightheaded and overwhelmed. 

He knew Eskel would be smiling when he finally looked up at him again, inviting this to continue. 

By the time Eskel came he had Geralt _drunk_ with it. Eskel pulled him up by his nape and his hair, the taste of semen still on Geralt's tongue and his knees shaking almost too badly to hold him. 

They didn’t kiss. That was for another time when Eskel was in a tenderer mood. Instead Eskel hauled Geralt close, until only a finger’s-breadth of air separated their faces, and just breathed the smell of him. Of his hair, his skin, of Eskel’s own climax in his mouth. 

“Now,” Eskel told him, “you’re going to wait here until you’re calm. You will not touch yourself. If you can’t get your cock to go down, then wear something to cover it. When you’re ready, come downstairs. I’m going to go find Lambert. Maybe the three of us will go fix the roof beams in the west wing like Vesemir wants us to, or maybe we’ll get drunk together. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll decide to fuck you later.”

In that moment, Geralt understood exactly what this was. Eskel had waited a long, terrible time to have Geralt back. He had been alone, forced to contain himself while Geralt remembered nothing and chose someone else. So now it was Geralt’s turn to wait. To want without having any idea when or if he’d get what he wanted. However things went between them for a while, it would be at _Eskel’s_ pace.

“I love you,” Geralt husked out, meaning it more than ever. 

This earned him a laugh and another light slap to his cheek. 

“Guess you were right earlier. I do have my own trained wolf.”

As soon as Eskel left, Geralt subsided back down onto the stone. He leaned limp and cross-legged against the wall. This particular bedroom was cold and had not been used for decades, no fire in the grate or hangings on the walls or rugs on the floors. 

Even despite the chill and discomfort, Geralt wanted Eskel so badly that it took more than twenty minutes for Geralt’s erection to subside.


	30. Four Drunk Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will freely admit that this chapter is pure wish fulfillment for me. I'm not 100% sure this is in character for Yennefer, but also I don't care, I want it so much. The game devs keep Geralt's lovers so harshly separate from each other, riddled with jealousy and rage about the fact that he's slept with anyone else. And nothing about Geralt's interactions with Yen in particular implies that they are friends who share in the important aspects of their outside lives. In canon, Yen does briefly sit and drink with Geralt, Lambert, and Eskel, but then she leaves, and then the three drunk Witchers come up with a gross excuse to sneak into the tower and put on Yennefer's clothes. I wanted to see if I could find a way to take that canon content and make something better out of it. I like to think I have!
> 
> If nothing else, I will say I do like that the devs made Lambert canonically into crossdressing. I want Keira to get him a whole set of pretty dresses and makeup just for himself.

When Geralt was finally fit for company, he walked slowly down the stairs to the main hall. His legs still felt shaky from residual arousal and cold. His ears pricked up as he neared the doorway. Voices echoed on the stone--Yennefer and Lambert. 

“I realize I’ve given you little enough reason to like me, but there’s no need to be crass,” Yennefer stated, her voice hard. 

“Damn right you’ve given us no reason to like you!” Lambert spat in return. “You treat Geralt like something you found on the bottom of your shoe and the rest of us like idiot yokels! You even talk down to Vesemir.”

“You’re normally the first to disrespect Vesemir, so don’t pull that shit,” Eskel shot back. “Look. You had a good reason to be angry at Geralt, I get that. But Lambert has a point. I'm tired of Sorceresses taking advantage of him.”

His palm on the door, holding his breath, Geralt anticipated an explosion. Hopefully Yen wouldn’t hurt either of them too badly, or damage anything irreplaceable. 

“You’re right,” Yennefer admitted at last, and Geralt blinked in shock at the door. “I have not behaved as I should and I shall endeavor to do better. Though you, Lambert, have no room whatsoever to judge. You’re a petty, sadistic little man and I’ll not be criticized by you.”

“Too late for that!” Lambert crowed, but the noise of leather being struck hard and the ‘ow’ that followed probably meant that Eskel had hit him. Or Yennefer had. Or both. 

Geralt stood for several seconds. He had never known Yennefer to apologize for  _ anything. _ Had the djinn’s mischief warped her interactions with him to _make_ her that way? Or had she truly been that unhappy with him, that she would be so different now, even with Lambert? 

Perhaps it didn’t matter. They might never know. And either way, it was over between them at last. 

Geralt pushed the door open, padding over to where the others sat. 

“Uh, Yen, we don’t have glasses, you all right drinking from a mug?” Eskel inquired, holding up a bottle of Lambert’s horrible potato moonshine. Yennefer took the bottle from him, sniffed it, and made a face. 

“I’d drink from an old boot tonight, but that--that cannot be drinkable by humans,” she protested. 

“Tastes like shit but it gets you drunk,” Geralt joined in, seating himself between Eskel and Yennefer on the bench by the fireplace. He grabbed a mug and poured himself a hefty amount--if he was going to spend the evening yearning after Eskel (gods, Eskel looked _so good_ in just his shirtsleeves and breeches, leathers stripped off with his proximity to the fire) then at least Geralt could be drunk. 

“If you can’t furnish anything better, stop your whining,” Lambert pouted.

Yennefer took a mug from Eskel, knocking back a mouthful. Her eyes shut after what looked like an effortful swallow, free hand pressed to her mouth in shock, pretty eyes watering. 

At that Geralt felt a pang. A woman who managed to be anything like graceful after a gulp of Lambert’s moonshine was a truly exceptional beauty, and he had lost her forever.

But then the feeling passed. Geralt cared deeply for her, but this wasn’t a love affair any longer. 

“Ulch,” she said, with deep feeling. “Well, it has the benefit of being strong.”

Geralt took his own hearty gulp. It burned his mouth, his nostrils, and his throat the whole way down before settling like coals into his belly. 

To his surprise, it was Yennefer who started the conversation. She asked both Eskel and Lambert about recent contracts they’d taken, and listened with every sign of interest to the responses. But the truly stunning thing was that at several points, she even agreed with Lambert. When she prompted Geralt to speak, he described his search for Ciri and the people he had met along the way--neatly eliding how many of them he had slept with. 

Seeing the other four getting along softened something tense in Geralt’s chest. Probably the alcohol helped, but it was good to see the people he cared about together this way, even just for a little while. So many Witchers had died that the castle now always felt empty, over-large and growing ever more ruinous. But for tonight, at least, sitting by the fireside with these four, it was warm and homey. Geralt felt a strange new kind of love for Yennefer. It was softer sans the passion of the spell, but no less deep.

It turned out to only be a for a little while. As soon as Yennefer explained how she planned to lift the curse from their charge tomorrow by administering the Trial of the Grasses--assuming Vesemir’s approach failed--Lambert shrieked his protest. 

It took time and some very stern words from Yennefer to calm him back down. The revelation that Yennefer had found out the ingredients of the concoctions used to create Witchers shook them all up--but perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Geralt had, after all, invited Letho here, and Letho had been intending to restart the School of the Viper. If he had been meaning to do that, he necessarily had access to his school's formulation of the mutagens. So perhaps Yen had gotten the information from him.

Geralt knew that other Witcher schools still had their own formulations, but the exact proportions of ingredients used by every school varied, and the knowledge was a great secret kept even from most Witchers. Only a few Witcher mages had ever known the Wolf School mixture, and all of them had perished in the attacks by fanatics some decades prior. There was a reason Kaer Morhen was falling into disrepair and there were only four Witchers from the School of the Wolf left in the world. 

But Yennefer guided them just as skillfully onto other topics, coaxing stories out of Lambert until his ego puffed back up to compensate for his profound distress at the idea of himself or Eskel or Geralt creating new Witchers. His progressive drunkness helped too. 

At any moment Geralt expected Yennefer to grow fed up with all of them and leave. But she didn’t. She stayed, as if they could be _friends_ now in truth, just as Geralt had told her. Her cheeks flushed with the drink and she smiled more easily--and Geralt loved it. 

Yennefer beat Lambert, Eskel, and even Geralt at Gwent, which delighted Geralt and left Lambert even more peeved with her. So perhaps Geralt should have expected it when Lambert got a mischievous look in his eye and proposed a drinking game he’d learned somewhere. 

“I’ve never...” Lambert paused for dramatic effect, looking straight at Yennefer, “...slept with a succubus.”

He knew that Geralt had, and clearly thought it would make Yennefer feel jealous when Geralt took a drink. But Lambert's look of victory crumpled into horror when _all three_ of the others drank--leaving him revealed as the only one who had never had the pleasure. 

Geralt stared at both Yen and Eskel in his own state of shock. 

“How ‘bout that!” Lambert cried. “Both of you?? Really?”

Yennefer gave a very self-satisfied smile and lifted her eyebrows at him, clearly refusing to divulge any details whatsoever, so Lambert rounded on Eskel to get the details out of him. 

“I’m a sucker for people with horns,” Eskel admitted, looking flustered and avoiding Geralt’s eyes. “It was when Geralt was dead.”

Perhaps everyone at the table understood the deeply uncomfortable implications of that, because Yennefer held up her mug. 

“I’ve never...woken up from an evening of drink in only my underthings,” she said, probably trying to choose something less intentionally inflammatory. 

Lambert drank, slamming his mug down afterwards. 

“You wanna know the best part?” He waggled his eyebrows at Yen. “They weren’t even _my_ knickers!”

“You wish for more lace in your wardrobe, perhaps? I shall bear that in mind,” she smiled. Drink had always calmed her down.

They finished a full round of the game before Geralt put a stop to it. It had been tolerable so far, barely, but he had no desire to see how Lambert would try to bait Yen this time. 

Lambert wandered off for a while then, ostensibly to piss, but then showed up several minutes later in a ridiculous hat he’d apparently pilfered from Vesemir’s old belongings. 

At this Yennefer got a mischievous look in her eye. 

“You have a penchant for dressing up, it seems,” she murmured. “I think you would look lovely in something black and white, to bring out your eyes.”

Somehow--and Geralt could not remember how, afterward--they all wound up in Yennefer’s rooms at the top of the west tower. The details of how Yennefer convinced them all to try on her clothes as well was even more arcane and unknowable to Geralt. But convince them she did. It took only a few flicks of her wrist to make her dresses reshape themselves to fit Lambert’s larger frame--and rather more flicks to allow them to fit on Eskel’s. Geralt himself lay stretched out on the bed, head spinning as his liver tried to process everything he’d just thrown at it. A pair of Yennefer’s lovely tailored riding trousers flattened his cock and balls up against his body in a way that might have been inspiring were it not for the alcohol. 

Lambert seemed delighted with the whole adventure, twirling to make his skirts flare, while Eskel just stood stared at himself unhappily in the mirror. 

“Sheesh, thought I was ugly in my own clothes,” he sighed. “You couldn’t have given me a veil to wear too?”

Geralt grimaced hearing this but he didn’t dare offer his true opinion on how Eskel looked in front of Yen. Geralt would not previously have believed that Eskel had an hourglass figure, but Yen’s sleeveless dress accentuated the thickness of his thighs and the muscularity of his ass in a way that created a pretty curve--and had Geralt’s mouth watering all over again. He was already so frustrated from earlier that this was like a specialized form of torture. 

Which had maybe been Yennefer’s intent? Geralt couldn’t put it past her. 

“I understand how painful such marks can be,” Yennefer told Eskel, rising from her seat to adjust the fall of the fabric around his hips. She barely reached his collarbones. “Perhaps you know this, but many Sorceresses begin life...different and unwanted.” She glanced at Lambert, who was giggling to himself and clearly not attending, then at Geralt, who looked back at her with what he hoped was a tender expression. 

“I began life with a hunchback and a deformed jaw,” Yennefer murmured in a low undertone, clearly meaning it for Eskel’s ears. Lambert would still be able to hear it if he wanted to, thanks to Witcher senses, but he was never very perceptive when drunk. “Being marked in such a way--people are so cruel. Vicious. I imagine some of them are very callous even to you, with your blades on your back and your warrior’s demeanor.”

“Yeah,” Eskel agreed, eyes soft as he looked at her. “I...I didn’t know that about you. You gotta be much happier this way." He gestured up and down at her. "Looking perfect like you do.”

“Most of the time I am given more respect, that is true,” Yennefer agreed. “But it leaves one to wonder about the superficial nature of attraction. If all anyone can ever love is this new skin and not the person within it.”

Some thought or feeling curled in Geralt’s chest at that. 

But if the conversation went on, he knew nothing of it. The drink caught up to him at last and he fell into sleep. 


	31. Avallac'h

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: I've warned for the horrific nature of the process used to create Witchers before, but this chapter goes into it with more depth. This chapter contains descriptions of past child torture and has someone being hurt the same way onscreen. 
> 
> This chapter probably won't make a lot of sense to people who haven't played the game, since I've avoided describing or mentioning Uma up till this point. 
> 
> Also, as those familiar with the game may have noticed by now, there are small plot points I've altered because they only make sense by game logic. There are many things Geralt does in-game because he's the protagonist which more realistically should have been handled by someone else. There are more of those small changes here.

The next morning Geralt awoke to both a splitting headache and Vesemir returned with Uma unchanged. 

The thoughts which Geralt had successfully forced his mind to avoid up until then (that this poor creature, with its weeping sores and stinking diaper, might be Ciri) rushed in to fill his mind. Everything became far too real too fast, like waking up from a good dream into a nightmare. Yen had been the one to fetch Uma from the Crow’s Nest, and Vesemir had been examining them the last few days, fascinated by the unusual nature of the curse. Which had meant that since the revelation that the being nicknamed ‘Uma’ _might_ be Ciri, Geralt had only rarely been confronted with full reality of that awful possibility. 

Uma laid out in the iron half-cage which had seen so many young Witcher candidates to their deaths made Geralt’s breath catch in his throat and his nausea worsen. 

“Must be fifty years since I last saw Sad Albert,” Eskel said, hands braced on his hips and his face blank. The nickname the boys had created for the harrowing contraption sat uneasily in the room, belying the nature of its cold dark metal. The empty slats under hips and head, to allow vomit and feces to flow away from the child it was designed to hold. The shackles along where the little arms and legs would lie, and the curved restraint near the head, to keep children from escaping or damaging themselves as they seized. The glass receptacles high above the bed of the device, for holding the toxic substances used to induce the mutations. 

He’d cried, Geralt remembered suddenly. Eskel had been nearby, the procedure already started on him, and Eskel had been screaming. Geralt had never heard anyone scream like that before. He had been so terrified, so sick with fear for himself and Eskel and all their friends that he had wept. The shame of it had been overpowering. He'd wanted to be strong, to face this rite of initiation like a man--but when the Witcher mages stood over him with their needles and blades, he had begged them to let him go to Eskel's side. 

Geralt could feel the tears wetting his temples and soaking into his hair. 

“Couldn’t bear to part with it,” Vesemir said, somewhere far away, his voice coming as though through water. “Thought we might find a use for it someday. You know how old people are.”

“Sure, every grandpa out there’s got an attic full of  _ torture devices!” _ Lambert spat, the words vicious.

Geralt blinked, tearing his gaze away from the object and the twisted little body in it. Forced air into his lungs. Gulped against the roiling in his belly. 

He found a waterskin and drank it down. By the time he’d finished, Yennefer and Vesemir had already started with Uma. 

Uma _screamed. _

Geralt forced himself to stand at the foot of the metal frame and watch. If that was Ciri...if these were her last moments...then he had to see it. Had to be near her. 

“I had hoped...I’d hoped I’d never have to watch this again,” Vesemir admitted, arms crossed over his chest and his normally serene face pinched. 

But at this Lambert’s face twisted with fury. “Why’d you _keep the table_ then?” he hissed. 

Normally the feelings of betrayal and hatred that Lambert still felt so keenly for Vesemir were alien to Geralt. But now--now--

Vesemir said nothing, ignoring Lambert completely. 

Lambert turned and left. He did not come back.

When Yennefer’s hand lit with power and Uma went still in the bindings, Geralt could only hope that whatever stabilizing spell she was using to keep the creature alive offered some amount of solace. Perhaps it hurt less, with light running though your body alongside the mutagens. 

“I do not know how long we will need to wait,” Yennefer stated, eyes fixed on Uma. She, too, had to be thinking of who might be hidden under this cursed form--wondering if this monstrosity they were committing would reveal their beloved daughter. “Uma’s body is not nearly as resilient as a young Witcher’s, meaning I need to--”

Uma retched, an arc of stomach acid splattering Yennefer’s jacket and skirt. 

That had happened to  _ him _ too, Geralt remembered. Before everything had vanished in the feverish haze, his guts had turned themselves inside out. First he’d thrown up, then he’d shat himself...and then it had been blood in his sinuses, his mouth, between his legs. Among all the other pain, he remembered the way the salty metallic liquid had made his tongue tingle. 

Without being asked Eskel fetched rags and scrubbing brushes. With gentle politeness he mopped up Yennefer’s clothing, big hands careful with her fine belongings, before he knelt to clean the floor. 

Geralt couldn’t help noticing how Eskel’s eyes never once moved past the flagstones or Yennefer. But  Geralt himself stood frozen. He couldn’t seem to make his body move. He couldn't look away.

When Eskel finished, he came to stand between Geralt and Yennefer. 

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Eskel murmured. “The Trial. If that’s Ciri in there, she could come out crippled or wrong in the head. What will happen if she--”

“If that’s Ciri in there, then she’s already those things, and we have nothing further to lose,” Yennefer stated simply. “I have researched this for weeks. Believe me that I exhausted  _ all _ other possibilities before settling on this one.”

At last dragging his gaze from the twitching little body and the trails of red now flowing from its eyes, Geralt saw Eskel’s lashes flutter shut, his mouth tightened into a grimace of pain. 

“Sorry,” Eskel apologized. “She’s your daughter too. I know that.”

Geralt expected him to leave, then. He expected Eskel to flee as Lambert had. Geralt wanted to flee himself. 

But Eskel stayed at their sides, bringing Yennefer dried fruit and meat to sustain her as she struggled to continue the spell. He rubbed at her hands when they cramped, brushed her sweaty hair out of her face, and fussed over her in a way Geralt had never thought he’d see. 

He wanted it to be him doing it. He knew that she wouldn’t let it be him. Not anymore.

They listened as Uma gurgled and frothed at the mouth. Reddish bubbles formed as it breathed. 

“That normal?” Geralt asked in sick fascination. By this point in his own procedure, he’d been too far gone to remember what had happened to him aside from the pain of it. 

“The organs are disintegrating from the inside,” Yennefer gritted out. “So yes. It’s normal for this stage. Once that’s done, we’ll need to re-form them. Witchers are given mutagens. We’ll use magic.”

Geralt wished he hadn’t asked. 

As the hours passed and exhaustion began to take Yennefer and her rigid posture slumped till she was barely keeping herself upright, Eskel began telling stories about Ciri. Long, meandering tales, meant more to keep Yennefer awake than to communicate a tale from start to finish. Disjointed memories, details about the things Ciri had said and done during her years here at Kaer Morhen. 

As though this were a deathbed vigil, Geralt thought. The reminiscing one did in the final hours before the end. 

Vesemir wandered in and out. All three of them fell silent every time he stood by the device. Whatever they said to one another was not for his ears. 

The seconds crawled by, one after another after another, until it was done.

And when the magic had cleared, and it was not Ciri’s gangly limbs spilling over the edges of the metal cage, but the tattooed skin of an elf…

The relief felt as though it would consume Geralt like flame. 


	32. Eskel: self-restraint and understanding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to title the chapters that aren't just Geralt fucking someone new. Also this chapter fought me every step of the way. I can't even tell if it's good anymore. I had to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, and ended up writing something completely different from what I intended. Hope people like it! 
> 
> I changed a lot from canon here. The game's writing and timeline falls into complete nonsense at this point, especially the part where you ride all the way to Vizima to ask Emhyr for help in the battle, he says sure absolutely lemme give you some troops and a commanding officer you already know and at least tolerate (Morvran), and Geralt just says "Fuck you, if I don't get to command the troops personally, we'll fight the Wild Hunt on our own" and somehow we're supposed to think that makes any sense OR is something Emhyr would even allow at that point. 
> 
> So anyway, that's silly. Have some more orgasm denial.

A week passed before Avallac’h awoke enough to understand speech. A day passed after that before he could give them answers. Yet even having the knowledge of where Ciri was didn’t mean they could go to her. Because if Ciri left her hiding place, the Wild Hunt would follow. And while a cluster of five Witchers, two Sorceresses, and an elven sage was a strong force, they would still be no match for the Wild Hunt’s search party. 

Which meant recruiting more aid.

The awkwardness of having several of Geralt’s past and present lovers gathered in Kaer Morhen only escalated as allies arrived. Yennefer brought in Triss, because even as fraught as that relationship was, Yennefer knew they needed another Sorceress. Triss brought in Zoltan Chivay, which meant Dandelion heard and wanted to come. With Dandelion came Priscilla, who refused to let him go to ‘near-certain death’ alone. 

Dandelion started flirting with everyone almost as soon as he was out of the portal. Lambert, who was already eyeing Keira with interest, clearly didn’t mind the attention. Keira didn’t mind it either. Geralt could only hope that if Dandelion slept with them both, that Priscilla would at least be informed. 

Other allies arrived every day, whenever the Sorceresses could muster enough power for more portals. And as one of the first people Yennefer had gone to was the Emperor himself, an entire imperial battalion was on its way, led by none other than Morvran Voorhis: Ciri’s husband to be, if she chose to follow in Emhyr’s footsteps and assumed the throne. Kaer Morhen needed only to wait for the ranks of trained Nilfgaardian soldiers, armed with silver weapons at Emhyr’s expense, to find them. 

And through all this, Geralt went slowly mad.

Within the first week, Eskel had fucked Geralt four times and demanded his mouth another three, and had not allowed Geralt to come once. 

By the end of the first week, Geralt could not sleep for any length of time without having erotic dreams that resulted in sticky underclothes upon waking. He could not be near Eskel without feeling his heart rate lift, his senses orienting toward on the source of his frustrated desire like a compass pointing north. 

By the end of the second week, when Eskel still had not allowed Geralt to come, Geralt’s mouth had begun to water every time he scented Eskel on the air. The sight of Eskel had Geralt’s palms damp with sweat. 

Geralt had never experienced desire like this. 

He had borne a Witcher’s libido for decades, of course, and most people considered that to be voracious. And while many forms of responsiveness and emotionality were dulled by his mutations, Geralt’s senses were every bit as capable of being enraptured by a lover as a human’s. Many times during his life Geralt had thirsted for a lover’s touch, both out of the base lust of his own body’s drive for satisfaction and from the warmth of love and a desire for closeness. 

But _ this_\--constantly being both given what he wanted and denied the relief of it at the same time--it felt to Geralt as though Eskel were inducing a form of insanity. Insanity that Geralt found he had a certain masochistic taste for, but insanity nonetheless. 

The ways his body discharged during the night gave Geralt no real relief during the day. It was more like scratching a flea-bite: one scratch only awoke the inflamed nerves and caused it to itch more. 

At the beginning of the second week, when the decision was first made to recruit help, Eskel pulled Geralt aside. 

“You said that you wanted to know what I want. You said you’d do that if I figured it out,” Eskel asked without asking, his features hard in the way that signaled he felt vulnerable. 

Geralt nodded, curious as to what Eskel had discovered. 

But Eskel would not meet his eyes. “Wouldn’t ask if I...that is, normally I wouldn’t demand...”

“Spit it out,” Geralt prompted. He could not stop imagining Eskel bending him over the table in their bedroom again. When it had happened last night, Geralt had been achingly close to climax the whole time, stopped only by Eskel’s vicious grip on Geralt’s balls. Perhaps after this conversation, Eskel would allow him relief? Even if not, perhaps he would at least allow Geralt to touch him again. “It’s not like you to be timid.”

This earned him a glare. “Shut it! This is hard enough without you mouthing off to me about it.”

Chastened, Geralt said nothing more. He waited obediently for Eskel to find his words. 

“Normally, if you and I were on the Path, I would never ask you to limit yourself just to me,” Eskel got out at last. “It would be selfish. I can’t ask for a promise like that when neither of us knows if or when we will see each other again. But...” Eskel’s yellow eyes searched Geralt’s face, clearly already looking for signs of resistance. “Here, though--now, while I’m at your side--I want you to agree to sleep with no one but me."

Geralt’s first thought was to agree automatically. Anything he could say which would make Eskel happy with him seemed a small price to pay, especially right now. 

But beneath that thought was a smaller, tougher one that said something else. 

“I’m happy to give you that for now,” Geralt replied carefully. “But I do not wish to be asked for this long-term. When we are on the Path--”

“Just said I wouldn’t ask for that then,” Eskel snapped. “Well. Except...”

Geralt stared at the other man, wondering where this could be leading. “Except?”

At this, Eskel finally met his eyes in a long silence. A tingle of response went through Geralt, simultaneous anxiety and anticipation.

“If we survive this,” Eskel said at last. “If we succeed in repelling the Wild Hunt. When we go back on the Path, I want us to go together.”

Geralt stared. His heartbeat pounded in the vessels of his throat. His skin grew itchy-hot under his winter clothing. 

“We always said we couldn’t afford that,” he ventured at last. 

Eskel nodded, taking Geralt’s hand and pulling him down onto the bed to sit at his side. 

“Work enough for one Witcher is not work enough for two. I know,” Eskel agreed. “But if we survive, and Ciri survives. Then Emhyr will either kill all of us or reward you handsomely for your labor. And if he rewards you, we will have money to spare, at least for a while.”

“I already have some,” Geralt confessed. “He paid me for bringing news to him of Ciri’s doings. I buried it.”

Eskel watched him. He knew Geralt well enough to know that this was not an agreement, simply a stating of a somewhat-related fact. 

So Geralt forced himself to think it over. He wanted this, he had wanted this his whole life. He had missed Eskel for decades upon decades. 

But Geralt was also a little afraid. He had traveled with lovers before. Yennefer, Triss, Dandelion, and Regis all sprang to mind. And it had been different with each one. Difficult in surprising ways with each one. 

But Eskel had been patient for so long, borne more than any partner should have to bear. Geralt could give him a time with just them alone, couldn’t he? And if it became a true hardship, they would speak then. 

“All right,” Geralt agreed at last. “If that is what you want, then that is what you shall have.”

“One other condition,” Eskel then added, still searching Geralt’s face. 

Geralt, who had just begun to relax into the idea, tensed again. He gave Eskel a questioning look.

“No Sorceresses for a year. _None_ of them. But especially not Triss.”

Geralt closed his eyes, shocked at his own disappointment. He had not been actively imagining it. But since he had ended things with Yennefer, in the back of his mind he thought that if he encountered Triss again, perhaps...

“Why her?” he asked.

“Because she took advantage of you,” Eskel said at once, and seeing Geralt tense, he laid a hand on Geralt’s wrist, perhaps meaning to hold him in place. “I know you loved her--maybe you still love her. And I respect her skill and talent. But she took advantage of you. Don’t argue, you know she did.”

Geralt was disciplined enough not to squirm in his discomfort. Suppressing the urge still took effort. 

“I warned her away from you,” Eskel told him then. “When it went past flirtation and she slept with you. I told her that she was breaking Yennefer’s trust. _Your_ trust, if you ever regained your memory. Hell, I even told her she was pissing _me_ off. She didn’t care.”

Geralt winced. He passed a hand over his face, rubbing at an itch in his beard. He thought about how he needed to shave soon.

He had wanted to believe that Triss just hadn’t known. He had wanted to believe that she had perhaps thought the situation between him and Yennefer had changed. He had wanted to believe she had no idea he was involved with Eskel at all. (He hadn’t told _ Triss _ about Eskel either, he realized guiltily.) He had _ known _ none of that wanting was based in truth--it was why he had ended the relationship with her--but hearing it this bluntly from Eskel was somehow worse. 

Even so, a small part of Geralt was still flattered to be seen as that desirable. But now, at Eskel’s side, with Eskel’s long, difficult history of patience and isolation laid bare between them, that just made Geralt feel more miserable. 

“Right. I can...I agree to that.”

Eskel kissed him tenderly then. Fucked him tenderly too. 

He still refused to let Geralt come. 

By the time Dandelion arrived, respecting Eskel’s demand that Geralt not touch himself or fuck anyone else was...not exactly difficult, but onerous in a way Geralt had not anticipated. His body and mind were so primed from the lack of release that the presence of more people he associated with sex turned Geralt’s own mind against him. He caught himself thinking, _ I could fuck Dandelion and wash afterward. Pretend I’d been mixing herbs, cover up the smell with something else. Eskel wouldn’t have to know. Dandelion would never admit to it. _

It alarmed Geralt. If he was starting to think that way, then surely the game between himself and Eskel had reached its natural conclusion. 

So he went to Eskel. Told him about it, sure that it would mean they’d fuck and this strange game between them would be over. 

Instead Eskel laughed at him. 

“Incredible. I just liked the idea of you wanting me more. But maybe if I keep this going long enough, you could even understand what it’s like for the rest of us,” Eskel told him, with no sympathy whatsoever. “What it’s like for _ me.” _

Geralt scowled at him, unprepared for this response. Eskel just crossed his arms and stared back at him. 

“If you want to stop doing this with me, then just stop. Go stroke yourself off. Come. I won’t stop you.”

“Explain,” Geralt growled. 

For several long moments, Eskel looked Geralt over as though he were a stranger. Eskel examined his face and posture, and then finally nodded to himself. 

“Imagine you’re me,” he began. “Imagine that the Path has given you precious little coin and even less gratitude. People dislike Witchers, and they _ hate _ ones who look like the back-end of a wyvern.”

“Eskel, come on,” Geralt rolled his eyes, not wanting to hear more talk of that sort. 

“Imagine it’s been more than a year since you were last touched by anyone you didn’t pay for the privilege,” Eskel pressed on, speaking louder now. “Imagine that no one has looked at you with desire that whole time. Imagine the man you love has left you and you don’t know if he’ll ever come back. What do you do?” he demanded. 

Embarrassed at himself again, Geralt dropped his eyes. “I don’t know. Just tell me.”

“You grow desperate,” Eskel growled, the words bitter and harsh. “Your own mind becomes your enemy. You start thinking vile things, like how easy it would be to use Axii on that handsome man in the last village you passed through, because you so badly miss being touched and held and if you can’t be _ wanted _ then you can at least have that. Then you get angry and disgusted at yourself. At the world. At _ everything. _ The exhaustion cuts deeper than ever before because there is nothing and no one to hold you through the hard times. Hope becomes your enemy. You hate even the _ idea _ of hope, because wanting things to be better someday has hurt you over and over and _ over _ again and you are so fucking tired.”

“Eskel--” Geralt began to say. 

“Then you get reckless!” Eskel pushed on, and Geralt could hear a ragged edge in his voice now. “You take contracts you shouldn’t. Do things you shouldn’t. What’s a few more scars when you look like this? What’s a little more pain when your whole life is hell? What’s the point of _ caution _ anymore? Witchers are meant to die alone! And there’s nothing to wait for any longer, nothing to want!”\

“Eskel!” Geralt barked. 

His chest hurt. The arousal he’d been feeling, the constant readiness to be fucked, faded to nothing. 

“I'm not sure you've ever understood, Geralt,” Eskel told him. “We're both Witchers. But you're also handsome and famous. The Path will never be the same for you as it is for me.”

A long silence passed between them. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Geralt admitted at last.

“Nothing,” Eskel told him. “I’m not looking for some set of words. I just want you to _ understand _ me. You said you wanted that too.”

Geralt did. He still wanted it. More than ever, now, as it became apparent just how much he’d missed over the years. 

Now seeming to feel embarrassed himself, however, Eskel waved a hand at Geralt. 

“This was all just supposed to be a game. It’s just fun to watch you squirm and to feel attractive for once. That’s all. I didn’t mean for--I didn’t intend this. I’ll get you off if you want.”

Geralt came up close to the other man, bending his head to rest it upon Eskel’s shoulder. 

“What if we waited a little longer,” he offered. “I don’t mind waiting, feeling this. For you.”

So they kept playing their game. Eskel brought him to the edge and didn’t let him fall past it over and over again until Geralt was so desperate that he thought he might die. 

At the end of week three, they lay naked in bed together. Geralt was still hard, his cock purpled and aching as he gasped his frustration, unable to calm his breathing even now they were finished. Eskel lounged at his side, relaxed. 

“Next time,” Geralt pleaded. “Next time, please. Will you let me come?”

Rolling onto his elbows, Eskel looked into Geralt’s eyes. 

“Think you’re ready for that?” he asked. 

With a snort, Geralt glared at him. “Of course I damn well am.”

But Eskel just looked at him, in the way Geralt was starting to understand meant that Eskel was about to share something important with him. So Geralt mastered himself. He took a deep breath, slowing his heartbeat as Witchers were taught to do during meditation. He relaxed his hands.

“Fine. You think I’m not ready. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Eskel seemed to be picking his words. They came out slow and careful. 

“When you’ve waited so long for something you need so much. When you finally get it, it goes one of two ways.”

A premonition of what Eskel was about to say stole over Geralt. In his susceptible state, cock still miserable against his hip and balls pulled up tight against his body, it sent a shiver through him. 

“First way is that it’s everything you dreamed,” Eskel continued. “Waiting only made it better! And getting it? Bliss.” Leaning down, Eskel trailed his mouth along Geralt’s throat. His lips tickled over Geralt’s collarbones, the barely-there contact igniting the already-high intensity of Geralt’s desire. His hips rose automatically, but he forced them back down, forced himself to keep breathing evenly as Eskel withdrew. 

“And the second way,” Eskel sighed. His thumb stroked over Geralt’s arm. “Second way is that when you finally get what you’ve been wanting...it feels like nothing. You built up this fantasy of the relief you needed. Of things being better. But you’re so tired that you’ve shut down. You can’t respond at all to what you wanted. Then all you can feel is resentment. Fury. Exhaustion.”

Geralt shut his eyes. He swallowed. 

“Eskel, have I...have I done that to you? Tell me that you haven’t been...I don’t know. Pretending.”

Eskel shifted, drawing his hand over Geralt’s chest. “Not yet. I think it would happen, though. If nothing changed.”

Geralt thought about it. His thoughts were foggy and unwilling, orbiting around his swollen cock and the slick throb of his ass. 

“Make me come,” he said at last. “If you want to do this with me again, I’ll do it. I’d do a lot of things if you asked. But I think the game is over for now.”

Nodding, Eskel reached down his hand.

It took very little to finish it. A few firm strokes with a tight grip and Geralt spilled, all over Eskel’s arm and his own belly and thighs. 

Staring up at the ceiling, Geralt grinned. He nudged Eskel’s shoulder with one shaking hand. 

“That was a damn good metaphor you had there, but in the end, it wasn’t really either option. That wasn’t a bad orgasm. Wasn’t a great one either.”

“Oh fuck you!” Eskel laughed, wiping his dripping hand on Geralt’s face. Geralt howled, bit his fingers, and tackled him onto the bed. 

From his new perch, he rubbed himself on Eskel’s belly. “The second you get hard again, I’m riding you till I come.”

“Not much of a threat, that,” Eskel told him. 

“I’ll make up a more convincing one if you don’t fuck me again soon.”

He didn’t have to. Eskel kept at him until even Geralt felt drained, wrung out like a dishrag and left to dry. 

Which was good. Two days later, he left with Yennefer to find Ciri at last.


	33. Ciri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is super duper not a ship chapter either but I don't know how to title chapters except with the names of the people Geralt's encountering in them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain totally fizzled out today, so I'm just flinging this chapter up and hoping it doesn't suck too much. I'm peeved by this part of the game! The conversation with Avallac'h is all URGENCY, YOU GOTTA FIND HER RIGHT NOW but then we're supposed to believe Geralt spends weeks riding all over the North asking for help. Then you're supposed to believe Geralt goes ALONE to get Ciri, even though Yen is RIGHT THERE, because the devs hate mothers I guess. And then there's an unnecessary and weird little plotline where Ciri is Snow White and she's in a house with seven dwarves? It's really bad. And of course, the whole Snow White fairy tale contains a princess who seems dead until some man comes to save her. Only in the game, Avallac'h doesn't warn Geralt about that because Geralt just sets off immediately on his stupid quest to recruit people, so there's this really shitty moment where Geralt gets faked out thinking Ciri is dead only for her to come alive once he's basically weeping over her 'corpse'. 
> 
> It's bad writing! My writing in this chapter may not be great either but at least it's not that.

Geralt had to admit (grudgingly, with a great deal of distaste) that what Avallac’h had done to Ciri was clever. Avallac’h described it as a kind of magical sleep that imitated death. In her only half-alive state, scrying spells looking for her life force could not find her. And further, Avallac’h had hidden her in what he called an ‘in-between place.’ The Isle of Mists, he said, was not a real world, merely a small pocket of place-ness between their world and another one similar to it. So while the Wild Hunt would be looking for Ciri across all the worlds, their methods would not immediately bring the Isle of Mists to their attention. 

At least, so he hoped. 

Yennefer opened a portal for herself and Geralt that brought then to Skellige, which Avallac’h described as the closest entryway to the Isle of Mists. From there, they rented a ship, taking it out into the foggy morning waters. 

Avallac’h had given them an item he said would guide them to the in-between place. To Geralt’s eye it looked like a will’o’wisp, a bright orb of light. But will’o’wisps were cold light, and this thing warmed the jar he carried it in. It warmed his hands if he held it long enough. And just looking at it filled his mind with a strange warmth, too. 

But they followed Avallac’h’s instructions, releasing it into the air once they were completely shrouded in fog and could no longer hear or see land. 

Geralt and Yennefer both half-expected it to be a ruse, a story to kill them so Avallac’h himself could go to Ciri somehow. Even despite the debt Avallac’h now owed them for lifting his curse, it was clear that if he could have found any way to tell them nothing and go to Ciri himself, he would have. But as he could not even control his bladder yet, much less walk, he remained behind in Kaer Morhen.

The icy mists chilled them both. Yennefer shook in her furs, Geralt in his leathers. 

The less said about the island they found, the better. Geralt felt stretched thin as soon as they set foot ashore, like he was caught in the middle of a portal with no end. As though his very soul were squeezed in the eye of a needle even as his body kept moving. 

“You know, I almost begin to understand your dislike,” Yennefer admitted after Geralt said this aloud. They trudged after the glowing light. “This is...unpleasant.”

But when they found Ciri--when they saw her laid out and still--

From her bluish lips to her breathless body, if Avallac’h had not prepared them, Geralt would have thought her dead. Even the sight of her this way made his heart clench.

“If he has lied to us,” Yennefer began to say, perfectly echoing Geralt’s thoughts. “If she is not--”

But then she drew a deep breath, like one waking from a deep and satisfying sleep. 

They rushed to her side. The way her face lit up as she saw them both made every step of Geralt’s search worthwhile. 

For a while they sat and listened to Ciri talk, her face bright with excitement to tell them all that had happened to her in recent days.

_ I love her! _ Geralt’s mind shouted as he nodded along. He felt mesmerized by Ciri. He’d been the subject of Axii and the various forms of mind control exhibited by monsters and creatures, and this felt almost the same. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her. He didn’t want to move even a hand’s-width away. His guts knotted up and he could hardly breathe. He felt _sick_ with his love for her, his pride at her strong scarred hands and her young scarred face and the beautiful blade she wore on her back like a Witcher. 

His mind kept shouting.  _ I love her! She is my daughter! I love her! I love her! She is here!  _

But with that came the fear. 

He had mucked up his relationships with partners and friends. He tried to tell himself that a daughter was different,  _ family _ was different, but...but his family had abandoned him, and if he had been making so many mistakes even with Eskel, where he had vastly more experience, then how could he hope to be any better as a father? Surely many of the same skills were involved: honesty, the ability to listen, the capacity to change. And he already knew he struggled with all of them. 

The idea brought a fine trembling to the muscles his ribs and left his hands shaky so he had to hide them in his lap or behind his back. And his face was doing something, making some expression which he couldn’t stop that was probably desperate and full of longing.  _ I love her I love her I love her I love her,  _ he thought. 

He could only be grateful for his own lack of expressiveness that hid most of this from her. Surely she would not want to know. 


	34. Funeral

Standing at Vesemir’s pyre, Geralt considered, in a distant sort of way, that it had been a long time since he’d been this numb. 

He thought about the ingredients he would need to replenish his sword toxins. He thought about the brewing time each of them would take. He thought about where in the keep to find any of the apparatus required to brew them. Ciri had brought down a great deal of masonry. What had survived her outcry?

Geralt thought about anything, really, other than the dead man burning. 

Dimly he noted that he couldn’t feel either the lingering cold of a place touched by the White Frost or the heat of the pyre. He watched his own body at a remove. As though he were dreaming. 

What finally woke him was Ciri darting up to the pyre, reaching in, and snatching out Vesemir’s medallion. It must have been already hot, for she hissed, shaking her hand and dropping the medallion into the snow. After staring at her fingers, she bent to pick up the shining thing. 

Mechanically, feeling as though his body were an awkward contraption made of wood and gears, Geralt went up to her. 

“Don’t blame yourself,” he told her, because that was what one said at moments like this, wasn’t it? The next words just came automatically: “No Witcher’s ever died in his bed.”

It seemed ridiculous, now, that he had ever dreamed it could be otherwise for himself. He was a Witcher and the father of a child of Elder Blood and the heir to the Nilfgaardian Empire. Who was he to think he could have peace? Even though Vesemir had been settling into his old age, spending more and more time at Kaer Morhen, taking fewer and fewer contracts, _he_ had still died in battle. 

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Ciri told him, and he blinked a little to hear her voice as numb and distant as his. “To see someone you love die, because of you. For you.”

He tried to think of how to respond. He was her father, he had to offer her something, some reassurance that safety would come. But the only words he could find, which he knew he could not say aloud, were:  _ And now you know what it’s like watching someone you love die no matter what you do. I’ve done this too often. Don’t make me do it again for you. _

He got through the conversation badly. Ciri ran away, toward the keep, miserable and alone, and after she had gone, Geralt wasn’t sure why he was surprised. 

He knew he ought to go talk to Lambert, to Eskel, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything. He didn’t know what he was doing.

A hand on his hip startled him enough that he glanced around to find the source of it, until he looked down and found Zoltan looking up. 

“I know you were close,” Zoltan told him, in a tone so gentle that Geralt also wished to flee like Ciri. A bubble of something rose in his chest and he didn’t want it. If he touched that, if it touched him--

He shut his eyes as the wave hit. He dug his fingers into his forehead, his temples, now angry as well, because he  _ felt like this _ and yet no tears came. Vesemir and the others had burned them out of him, burned them out of  _ all _ of their children, left them with nothing but this terrible well of pain that couldn’t be purged in any human way. 

Time passed in the hot, horrible tide of grief. It gripped his guts and crawled up his throat like acid and  _ no tears came _ because Geralt had been so  _ successful _ in the Trial of the Grasses. He had survived so well that Vesemir and the others had done it to him _again_, filled him with poison till his hair turned white and every last scrap of potential to connect with others in any normal way was gone. 

And yet Vesemir had also died to protect his...his grandchild. Witchers didn’t have children but Geralt had. So had Vesemir, in his own way. 

Zoltan slipped away when Eskel approached. 

Eskel’s eyes were every bit as dry, his arms crossed as if he were angry. Geralt knew he ought to reach out to touch as Zoltan had, to offer Eskel something, but Geralt couldn’t. He couldn’t. He felt like he was burning up like Vesemir. 

“Kaer Morhen,” Eskel exhaled, shaking his head. “Can’t imagine this place without him.” Eskel's throat clicked as he swallowed. “I know you and Ciri will be leaving soon. I’ll go with you if you want. But I’m not coming back here. I’ll find somewhere else to Winter next year.”

Geralt wanted to bite through his own skin. Maybe if he bled, that would be as good as crying. 

“Please,” he said, voice creaking like wood about to tear apart. “It’s the only home we’ve ever had. Stay.”

But Eskel turned, gaze heavy and intrusive. 

“No, Geralt. Place has been dying a while. Last nail in the coffin today. Time we accepted that.”

“But--all the stores, the weapons, everything. There’s centuries of Witcher’s goods in this place. Where else would we ever find that?” Geralt asked, trying not to beg and knowing he was failing. If Eskel left, that meant Geralt wouldn’t return either. Eskel had to know that. 

“That ain’t what mattered here and you know it. Just like you know the only reason to stay would be to make new Witchers, and we’re never gonna do that. We’re never gonna be like him.”

Geralt understood the full weight of what Eskel meant. Perhaps Vesemir had failed in some way in his training of them, or perhaps he had _succeeded_ in a way he hadn't intended, because none of his surviving charges could stomach this aspect of being a Witcher. Vesemir, beyond any other Witcher Geralt had ever known, had been committed to the Path. Despite two centuries of human scorn and indifference, he had still believed that theirs was a sacred task worth any cost, even when it came from his own flesh and blood. His own body, and the bodies of his...children. 

With Vesemir burned up any hopes for the future of the School of the Wolf. The lifting of the burden of Vesemir's belief hurt as much as anything else. 

“Fine," Geralt agreed. "We’ll go. We won’t come back.”

“You don’t have to go with me,” Eskel said in the deadest monotone Geralt had ever heard. 

Geralt swung his head around, staring in shock at the scarred features. “You think I’d leave you  _ now? _ You think I’d, what, walk away from you just to come back here alone and rot?”

“He did,” Eskel replied, nodding his head at the pyre. "He was looking for the formula for the mutagens. Did you not know? He had amassed enough money over the years that he probably could have retired. He went on contracts to try to find other Witchers to ask them for help. Libraries for research. Alchemists to get their advice, or to find ingredients he could use. Then he came back here alone with new books, to try." 

Geralt hadn't known any of that. He'd traveled with Vesemir for months this year alone and not seen a hint of it. Had the man kept it from him intentionally? For what purpose? Would he ever get to know, now?

"I'm not him," Geralt said, almost desperately. 

Eskel shrugged. "You were always most like him, of all of us."

The words shouldn't have cut so deep but they did. Geralt couldn't tell if he hated Eskel for them or was desperately grateful. 

“I'm not him," Geralt repeated. "Look. I don't know what will happen with Ciri. I just know I want you with me, by my side, as it happens. Do you want that?”

Eskel moved and Geralt almost flinched away. But he forced himself still as Eskel wrapped his arm around Geralt's waist and pulled him close, until he finally felt himself relax and laid his head on Eskel's shoulder.

"Of course I do."

They stared into the pyre in silence for a very long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of this info about Vesemir is canon so far as I know. I'm just making it up as my headcanon for this fic.


	35. Snowballs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're continuing to ignore that whole ridiculous thing where Geralt asked Emhyr for help and then said "Nevermind asshole" and walked out and Emhyr just let him. Also while I know it's not realistic for Dandelion and Priscilla to come to the battle of Kaer Morhen, I also don't think it's realistic for them to stay away, either. Dandelion's been on so many other terrifying adventures with Geralt and Ciri that I can't imagine him doing anything BUT throwing himself right into it again with them both. 
> 
> It also bugs me that the game makes such a huge fuss about how extremely damaging the curse and the Trial of the Grasses were to Avallac'h's brain and body, but then the game has him walking and fighting later like nothing happened. I'm sorry, that's not how neurological damage and recent major organ failure works. Sure, you could say Yennefer worked a miracle on him, or that Avallac'h himself knows of something that would help, but I'm just not sold on that. So we're throwing that aspect of canon in the trash too.

Ciri stomped out of the gates. First she went to one of the low stone walls and kicked it. Then she picked up handfuls of snow and threw them viciously. 

“What’d that wall ever do to you?” Geralt called. 

Ciri let out a short angry shriek, her eyes blazing. 

“I cannot do what Avallac’h wants! He says it is necessary that I learn to control my powers better, and I agree, but nothing he says makes any _sense_ and I cannot do it!”

Standing from where he’d been sitting in the sun and sharpening his blades, Geralt set his things aside and went over to her. 

“How many times did you try?” he asked, already suspecting the answer. 

Given the way she suddenly dropped her eyes and kicked the wall again, her mumbled answer of “Eight,” did not surprise him. 

Geralt managed not to laugh. Ciri’s powers were a serious matter. But Geralt would not have wanted Avallac’h as a teacher either, especially when he seemed to be coping with his inability to walk by becoming even more cold and dismissive. Triss had rigged him up an enchanted chair before leaving, so Geralt was half surprised he hadn’t followed Ciri out here. 

“Didn’t make it far your first time out on the Gauntlet, either,” Geralt told her encouragingly. She could probably run it in her sleep, now. 

But this only got a snort of disgust from her. “By comparison, the Gaultet was a walk in the park! But that’s not the point. Avallac’h says nothing will come of this till I stop thinking of the--battle.” 

Geralt noted the odd pause before the final word, and realized she meant the deaths--of Vesemir, and of the Nilfgaardian troops still camped in the courtyards below. They had fought exceptionally well, doing their commander Morvran Voorhis proud, but many had fallen to Eredin and Imlerith and the Hunt. That Morvran now kept trying to politely talk to Ciri, describing to her how wonderful she would be as Empress, probably didn’t help her state of mind. 

“At the moment, I find it impossible to fill my head with...with kittens, or pudding, or anything good,” she went on after a pause, looking miserable. Then she turned to him, taking his arm and searching his face. “Tell me, how do  _ you _ do it?”

“What?” he asked her, feeling sudden anxiety at the idea of her coming to him for advice. 

“Always manage to pull yourself together, focus, no matter what’s happening?”

He stared at her. It was terrible, realizing that she thought him capable of that--and worse still to realize that it was true. But how was he to tell her that while some of it was mental training, most of it was the chemicals that had warped him at half her age? 

She already knew that, he realized. 

In desperation, his thoughts turned to Eskel. The way Eskel had had them racing and silly in the midst of all their crises, all their misery. 

Maybe Geralt couldn’t always trust himself, but then, he didn’t have to do this alone, either. Maybe he trust Eskel and _his_ intuitions instead. 

The snowball fight which followed would, Geralt told Ciri later, be sung of by bards like Dandelion as soon as Dandelion stopped flirting with Lambert and Keira. 

“Oh my god it’s horrible,” Ciri moaned, kicking her feet and covering her face. “I walked in on all three of them kissing, even though Priscilla’s here!”

“Dammit Lambert,” Geralt growled, wincing. “I’ll have to go talk to them both.”

“No, that’s not the worst part,” Ciri told him, breathless now. “The worst part is that when I went to Priscilla to tell her, she told me that she'd end her relationship with Dandelion if he didn’t stop being so selfish and  _ share _ Keira with her soon. I thought my face would catch fire I was so embarrassed!”

At this, Geralt couldn’t help laughing. “Turns out you’re a real chip off the old block, I guess. You know _ I _ also told Priscilla about Dandelion’s philandering? She knocked me off my righteous pedestal too.”

The wide-eyed smile Ciri turned on him then had nothing to do with Dandelion’s unfolding relationship drama, Geralt realized, and everything to do with the fact that he’d said they were alike. 

Geralt felt his own expression mirroring hers. How could he help it when she was so wonderful?


	36. Emhyr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a ship chapter, alas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find Emhyr/Geralt compelling when other people write it, but it doesn't fit well into this story as I've written it so far. That's all right though. There are authors like Astolat who have this ship well and truly covered.

The worst irony of it was that of the three of them, Geralt was the most comfortable in the palace. Eskel puffed up his chest, standing tall and challenging people with his eyes. Ciri stuck so close to Geralt’s side as they moved that she kept bumping into him. 

They passed a group of women in satin and brocade with jewels on their fingers. The women stared at them in open horror and fascination, heads turning as they went past, loudly speculating in Nilfgaardian about why such _Nordling_ _barbarians_ were even allowed in. 

The imperial chamberlain led them into the garden rather than the throne room. Geralt didn’t know what to make of this; perhaps Emhyr was enjoying one of the last sunny days in the beginning of winter, or maybe this was his way of trying to put his daughter at ease. Both seemed like options entirely too human for him. 

The chamberlain pronounced both Eskel and Geralt’s names wrong, emphasizing the wrong syllable (probably on purpose, he was sending cutting looks Geralt’s way, doubtless for the insult of bringing yet another disgusting mutant into the palace with him) when Emhyr himself interrupted the chamberlain to recite Ciri’s full name and string of titles. Given the subtly pleased expression on his face, Emhyr had been waiting to be able to do this for a very, very long time. 

Ciri first looked shocked, then uncomfortable as all the nobles in the garden went down on their knees at the recitation of her titles, and then just blank-faced as the list continued. Then she just met Emhyr’s regal stare with her own cold, distant one--and suddenly Geralt could see Emhyr in her. 

She had always looked like her mother, he had thought. He had never been able to see any trace of Emhyr in her, a fact which doubtless galled the man himself. But now...now Geralt could see it. 

Something twisted in his belly. 

At least Emhyr didn’t disguise his intent in bringing her here. Geralt had already warned Ciri, of course, but Emhyr announced immediately and with no ambiguity whatsoever that his intent was for her to inherit his empire--and soon. 

At this point Emhyr appeared to remember that Ciri wasn’t the only one present. He waved the chamberlain forward, and this time he moved toward Geralt carrying a small chest. 

“I did not expect you to keep your word, Witcher. Your reward, as you were promised,” Emhyr said coldly. “This is, of course, merely a preliminary sum. The actual compensation for your years of service to the empire in caring for my daughter will be fifty times this paltry amount, and will come to you once I have finished my conquest of the north. When she inherits.”

The chamberlain opened the chest, revealing the glittering contents that filled it to the brim. The chamberlain had to use both hands to hold the box, and he leaned back under the weight of it. Fifty times that quantity of gold would be...

An amount not just one but two Witchers could probably retire on.

Geralt had been aware that he would be rewarded again just for bringing Ciri here. He had counted on it, in fact, though that of course wasn’t why he had prompted her to come. Another reward like the first would have meant that (assuming any of them survived what came next from the Wild Hunt) he and Eskel could both easily take whatever contracts they wanted, side by side, for several years. Hell, that they could afford to do it with Ciri at their side too, if she wanted. 

The twisting in Geralt’s belly hardened into a tight, agonizing knot as he met Emhyr’s narrowed eyes and realized what this truly was. This manipulation had been so perfectly-tailored that Geralt now wondered if Emhyr’s spies had brought him information about Geralt’s relationship with Eskel. They couldn’t have predicted that Geralt would bring Eskel here today, but perhaps Geralt had played right into Emhyr’s hand by doing so. Emhyr held Geralt’s whole future in his hands right now and Emhyr absolutely knew it.

Emhyr could have had the two thousand crowns delivered to Geralt privately, as he had last time, and let Geralt walk away feeling very well-served. Emhyr could have made this a private audience, as every previous meeting between himself and Geralt had been. But instead, Emhyr had stationed himself in front of a whole crowd of wealthy and powerful people, under the sun that was his Empire’s holy symbol, to formally remove Ciri from Geralt’s life forever. And not just that, to _ purchase _ Ciri from him, as though Geralt’s relationship with her had been nothing but an extremely extended contract and her body was the trophy Geralt had brought for proof of completion. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eskel’s chin drop, shoulders sagging, but Geralt had no idea if it was from relief or resignation. 

“I didn’t do this for the money,” Geralt said, matching the volume of his voice to Emhyr’s. It took a great force of will to keep his eyes from drifting back to the gold. It glittered so beautifully. “You asked me to bring your daughter here. I did so only because Ciri wanted to hear what you have to say. She will hear you out. Then we leave.”

Ciri pressed her shoulder into Geralt’s.

Emhyr stared at Geralt as though he were an iridescent beetle that had crawled over Emhyr’s shoe. Worth examining for a moment, perhaps, but ultimately an insignificant thing he might choose to crush. 

“Are you sure?” Emhyr asked, gesturing the chamberlain to close the casket. “Never again would you need to stalk monsters while wading through sewage.” 

It was a bald acknowledgement that Emhyr knew exactly what he was doing--while also using phrasing designed to disgust the nobility. It positioned Geralt as not only a common tradesman but one who worked in filth. No fitting company for the princess and heir apparent. 

Geralt glared at Emhyr. _ I helped you when you were friendless and alone and covered in quills, _ he thought at the other man. _I fought at your side even though it did nothing but hurt me. because someone else treated you unjustly. _

“I’m sure,” Geralt growled. Inside he felt as though he were drowning. He couldn't breathe.

For a brief moment Ciri took his hand, squeezing it. Then she strode forward to the chamberlain, taking the chest from him and carrying it back to Geralt. She hefted it against his body, and in his shock, he barely raised his arms in time to catch it before she turned toward Emhyr again. 

“Honor forbids him from accepting the money himself,” she announced. “But he will accept your generous reward from my hands. _ All _ of it. One must always pay a Witcher his due, and Geralt has faced many _ monsters _ out of his love for me.”

The hard stare she gave Emhyr at this left no doubt who she meant by _ monster. _

“Thank you,” Geralt murmured, and while the court would assume this was directed at Emhyr, Ciri would know it was for her. 

Emhyr’s mouth tightened just a little. But the expression smoothed away quickly, and he nodded as if this were perfectly acceptable to him. 

“Now forgive me. I wish to speak to _ my _ daughter.” 

With that petty little barb, the chamberlain stepped close to Geralt and Eskel, leading them away from the Emperor.

Geralt left Ciri’s side with reluctance. But this, he knew, was a monster she needed to face alone at least once. 

The chamberlain led them into the main audience hall and then departed quickly. Eager to be out of their presence. 

Eskel laid a hand on Geralt’s arm, moving to look into his eyes. 

“That was...is it always like that?”

Geralt couldn’t help the snort he let out. “Sometimes it's worse. That was pretty bad, though.”

“He won’t pay you the rest, will he,” Eskel said wistfully. “Gods, I’ve never seen so much money all in one place before. And fifty times that...but this is enough. Geralt, we can--”

“Yeah.”

They drifted into silence together, too keenly aware of the watchful eyes of guards and others who happened to be passing through the space. 

Expecting the imperial audience to last some time, Geralt set down the chest of coins. But only a few minutes had passed when Ciri stormed in through the same door and stamped over to them. 

“Geralt! We’re leaving!” she announced, now clearly beyond even _pretending_ she had any patience. 

With a glance at Eskel, Geralt picked up the chest and followed her.

“Well?” he inquired as he caught up to her.

“If he thinks he can buy me, he is sorely mistaken!” she spat, voice ringing off the high ceilings. 

“He offer anything specific? Beyond just...” he trailed off, meaning the casket in his arms.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped. 

Later that evening, however, once they were camped well outside the city limits, Geralt brought it up again. With Eskel he had made the mistake of assuming his feelings went without saying. He did not wish to repeat the error again with his daughter. Especially not when he had barely gotten her back for more than a fortnight. 

“Look, I won’t pressure you to discuss what he told you,” he began. “I just want you to know: I didn’t bring you to him for money. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you did for me--for me _and_ Eskel,” he corrected himself. Gods, it _ was _ second nature to hide the relationship, wasn’t it, even with someone who wouldn’t be disgusted. “But even if I have to work killing drowners at five crowns apiece for the rest of my life, I will consider myself well-served in having been able to love you.”

Her eyes flickered to his before she pressed a hand to her mouth, clearly trying to suppress tears. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t want either of you having to kill drowners at five crowns apiece forever,” she muttered. But then she went on in a stronger voice, “Vesemir is already dead. I don’t want anyone making more sacrifices for me if I can avoid it. And we all deserve a lot more from Emhyr than just that.”

Geralt tugged her up against his body, kissing her forehead and feeling as warmed by her as by the campfire. 

That night Eskel wrapped his body up behind Geralt’s and pressed a lingering kiss to his nape, in among the soft, wispy hairs. They didn’t need words for Geralt to understand what he meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene frustrates me SO MUCH in-game that it was a huge relief to rewrite it. I totally get why Ciri would hate the implication that Geralt manipulated her, encouraging her to meet Emhyr for one reason while hiding the fact that the meeting would earn Geralt money. I can especially get why Ciri would be horrified at the idea that Geralt could be bought out of her life. But I'll be honest, I didn't understand that was the implication from watching the scene for the first time. It wasn't till I watched the scene a few times that I understood how manipulative Emhyr is being. But the first time I played this game, I so completely assumed that Ciri wouldn't want her adoptive father to continue suffering on the Path, and that Ciri would be delighted to extort money out of her shitty bio-dad, that I didn't understand why she was so upset at Geralt for accepting the money. And the way the devs have her look so pleased and reassured that Geralt is gonna go on being broke and miserable just to prove he cares about her really pisses me off. It feels like another example of how the devs think women want men to suffer to prove their affection. Why couldn't they just haves shown her feeling reassured that Geralt's motivations toward her were pure, and then had her accept the money for Geralt anyway? 
> 
> So yeah, hence the rewrite here. Geralt loves Ciri, but Ciri also loves Geralt, and sometimes support goes both ways.


	37. Trio Travel

The three of them worked together beautifully. Eskel took Ciri’s natural playfulness and escalated it to an art form. They were always tossing objects to each other as they rode, as well as pranking each other in increasingly ridiculous ways, trying to recruit Geralt into their silliness and often succeeding. 

Geralt loved them both so much. The words were still difficult to say, but it was worth the effort just to see each of them light up when he managed it. 

Getting to see Ciri every morning when she woke (graceless, with her hair everywhere and sleep-crust around her eyes) was a gift, though she would have smacked Geralt for saying it. Travel was still hard. The miserable necessity of having to bathe in freezing streams and ponds, shivering and urgent, was never going to be pleasant. But even that was made better by Eskel’s presence at his side. If nothing else, it meant Geralt got to admire Eskel’s cold-tightened nipples and damp, pebbled skin. Because even though he and Eskel could do nothing but kiss with Ciri present, having even that much touch and affection every day felt incredible. Geralt hadn’t had anything like this since traveling with Dandelion and Regis and Milva and Cahir and Angouleme...

But that, too, was the crux of its own problem: loving Eskel and Ciri so much and working together so well with them meant that Geralt couldn’t help but wonder if this was the beginning of the end. A wariness settled over his body and would not leave. He had felt this way with people before and they had  _ all died. _ That had been to a different foe, but that gave him no comfort: even Vesemir, canny and tough, had already died to the foe they were about to face. 

Geralt’s shoulders and back and belly and thighs hurt constantly now, a low ache of tension that he could not ease. 

Even their initial victories gave him no relief. The Crones, Imlerith--Geralt and Eskel and Ciri tore them apart until they stood panting on the blood-slick battlefield and realized it was over. 

It did not feel over to Geralt.

On the road to Novigrad, Eskel let Ciri ride ahead and brought Skorpion close to Roach. 

“You’re unhappy,” he stated. “Traveling with us--with me--makes you unhappy.”

Geralt managed to suppress his wince. 

“That’s not true,” he replied, stroking a hand over Roach’s neck to focus himself on something else. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Eskel hissed, now angry. “Your body  _ stinks _ with misery. You take watch almost every night to avoid lying down with me, even when Ciri is jittery and offers to do it herself. You  _ hate _ this--you hate having me at your side.”

“That’s not true!” Geralt repeated, feeling the tension in his gut worse than ever. For a moment he considered saying nothing more. In their younger days, Eskel would have accepted that refusal, backed off and pushed no further. But Eskel _now,_ whom Geralt had already pushed to his limit, probably would not let this go. And if Geralt pushed him much further, perhaps he might leave.

“It’s not you,” Geralt gritted out, consciously relaxing his hands so he wouldn’t pull on the reins and confuse Roach. He scrabbled for the words. “I told you of my search for Ciri years ago, and of the group I traveled with, and the battle at Stygga castle where all of them..." The truth galled him even now, years later. "Where all of them died.”

“Yes,” Eskel acknowledged, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He clearly thought Geralt was attempting to divert his attention. 

Geralt did not wish to speak of this. Which details should he include? Which should he leave out, for his protection as much as Eskel’s? While he now knew that Eskel had also slept with a succubus at least once, and he knew Eskel to be as tolerant of nonviolent monsters as Geralt himself, there was a world of difference between a Witcher briefly dallying with a succubus versus a Witcher falling in love with a higher vampire. 

“I didn’t tell you that among the group was a lover of mine, who went by Regis," was all Geralt felt safe admitting. "There was also a girl named Angouleme. She looked--” Geralt swallowed, the words sticking in his throat, “--she looked like Ciri. With Ciri’s fate so uncertain at the time, I couldn’t help but feel paternal toward Angouleme. And Regis...” 

Geralt glanced at Eskel and found him staring back, clearly wondering what the point of this story was. 

“They died,” Geralt repeated. “Traveling with you and Ciri like this reminds me of my time with them. That time I had no notion that my friends would perish. This time, I know exactly how powerful the Wild Hunt is, and I cannot help imagining...” 

He trailed off, not wanting to speak it into the world. 

The horses’ hooves thumped on the packed dirt of the path, winding over the plains between Bald Mountain and Novigrad. 

“Wish you’d just told me that,” Eskel sighed, derailing Geralt’s grim thoughts. “I can deal with you grieving dead friends. We're all three of us doing that, all the time. But I’m really damn tired of wondering if you actually want me or not.”

“Sorry,” Geralt apologized. “I just...didn’t think.”

“Ciri’s probably also noticed something wrong,” Eskel told him. “You’re not nearly as good at that ‘emotionless Witcher’ schtick as you think.”

“Fuck off,” Geralt growled, but then added, “Fine. I’ll go talk to her too.”

He prompted Roach into a canter to catch up with Ciri. She glanced over, probably checking which of them it was.

They passed a few minutes with inanities, questions on whether Geralt knew what the next town and inn would be like, before Ciri blindsided him with a much more pointed inquiry.

“Are you and Eskel going to start fighting and splitting up and getting back together like you and Yennefer?” she demanded. “I want to emotionally prepare myself if so.”

“What the hell,” Geralt muttered to himself, unprepared for this full-frontal assault. “I hope not,” he said louder so she could hear him. “I’m trying to do better.”

“Good,” she told him. “Are you and Yennefer going to get back together again?”

Now openly wincing, Geralt tried desperately to figure out a delicate way to respond to this before realizing that Ciri probably just wanted the truth. 

“No,” he said at last. “Not...not this time. I’m sorry.”

Ciri cast him a weather look. “You only need to be sorry if you're going to mistreat her. Which you had better not. Do you intend to go on sleeping with every Sorceress who looks at you crosswise? Because that would well and truly upset her. And me.”

At this Geralt just shut his eyes. She was baiting him. She had done this often as a child, pushing until she got emotional reactions from him and the other Witchers. Geralt knew her well enough to know that she did it when she was feeling anxious about something. And she had plenty of reason to be anxious right now. 

The problem was that her baiting was working, as it often did, because she knew him well enough to find his sore spots. Perhaps in this case she didn’t know that Eskel had expressly forbidden him from doing this exact thing. Or maybe she did know. Maybe Eskel had told her. 

The worst explanation, which Geralt did not want to contemplate, was that his propensity toward Sorceresses was such an issue of his that everyone, including his daughter even after years away from his side, now braced themselves for it.

“No,” he answered after mastering himself. “Has that been a concern of yours?”

“Yes,” she told him bluntly. “Yennefer and Triss are gathering the Lodge. I’m scared of them. Like so many people, they only want to use me for their own ends. You sleeping with more of them and thus upsetting both Triss and Yennefer is the only thing which could make this worse.”

“Right,” Geralt agreed miserably. “That’s...very true. Well, I can give you my promise that you will have nothing to fear from me, at least.”

What he didn’t admit was that she had nothing to fear because Eskel had already pre-empted her. 

The two conversations with Eskel and Ciri played over and over in Geralt's head the whole way to Novigrad. 


	38. Radovid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also NOT a ship chapter

Dijkstra came up with another plot. Geralt felt no surprise, only a kind of tired resignation as he  went alone to the meeting.  Even if Dijkstra would have allowed outsiders, which he would not, Geralt did not want Eskel present for this.  A part of Geralt already knew how this meeting would end. 

Good thing he’d already shown mercy for Letho, he thought, or he’d have to kill himself next. Regicide was a terrible crime even for (especially for) a Witcher. 

Geralt hated it. He didn’t want to do it. It violated the fundamental tenets of Vesemir’s upbringing. It would probably disgust Eskel. It might even ruin the blossoming peace and warmth between them. 

But Vesemir was dead, and at all of Novigrad’s gates stood the smoking corpses of elves and dwarves. Was that not monstrous? Was it not a Witcher’s duty to destroy the foul things in the world which no one else could face?

Worse still was the voice in the back of Geralt’s mind telling him that with Radovid dead, Emhyr would quickly win the war. Geralt cared not a whit for Emhyr and his empire and would have preferred Emhyr dead too. But Emhyr wanted Ciri as his heir. During their trip on horseback, Ciri had spoken with wonder several times about what she could accomplish if she were on the Imperial Throne. She had remarked especially upon how much _good_ she could do. It made Geralt’s chest ache in mixed terror and pride to hear it: an Empress could never know peace or safety just as a Witcher never could. The only difference was the shape and size of the enemies. 

Geralt had no idea if she would choose it or not. It was too great a decision to make with the threat of the Wild Hunt before her. But if she did...if she  _ did _ make that decision, at least Geralt could make sure that Radovid wasn't one of those enemies. 

It hardly mattered which excuse Geralt picked to violate the tenets of his order. He did it anyway. That Philippa herself delivered the killing blow rather than Geralt was only a very small saving grace. 

Deep in the night he returned to Dandelion’s brothel, slipping upstairs to find Eskel at work oiling the leather of his armor. Geralt couldn’t meet his eyes, turning away to unfasten his cloak and remove his soiled armor. 

“You stink of human blood,” Eskel sighed. “And you’re not looking at me or touching me or doing anything else you normally do this time of day when we have a room to ourselves. Should I even bother to ask what happened?”

“No.”

“If I invite you to sleep beside me tonight, will you?”

“No.”

“Do I have anything to fear from what you did tonight?”

At this Geralt paused to consider. 

“No,” he said at last. 

The next day the tale was everywhere: Radovid dead, slain in the streets of Novigrad. From the way Eskel’s eyes turned directly to Geralt as soon as Dandelion relayed the news, he undoubtedly knew. 

Geralt expected retribution. He expected angry questions. He expected the ending of their connection, Eskel storming out of the city forever. 

What he got was a sad little sigh of, “Wolf. Is there a single thing you don’t stick your muzzle in.”

He said nothing more of it. It made Geralt sick to think that amongst everything else happening in their lives, the assassination of a king faded quickly into obscurity. 


	39. The Conjunction of the Spheres

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the game is just awkward to write into this story. It's not my best work. I just don't really care about the main plot or the things that result from it? I care about the characters and their interactions, not the Wild Hunt or whatever else. So I'm trying to just get through the major plot points in these chapters.

Geralt had always known, in a theoretical sort of way, that the Conjunction of the Spheres was responsible for his existence. Without the Conjunction there would have been no need for Witchers. Books and scholars had told him that a millennia and a half ago the worlds had overlapped in some way. In that time of overlap, the scholars said, living beings had moved between worlds and become trapped in new and unfamiliar places. This had included the creatures he hunted and killed for a living. 

But Geralt had never understood what the Conjunction meant in any _ real _ way. Had never been able to picture it. How could worlds overlap? It made no sense as a concept.

Geralt had also read the works of Nilfgaardian natural philosophers who believed that the earth was shaped like a ball. They stated that the continent Emhyr was trying to conquer and all the oceans around it existed on a round surface. There were even _other_ earth-spheres called planets, interspersed throughout great empty spaces far away from their own planet. He had seen illustrations of this concept and found it intriguing, but it, too, had still been a distant and theoretical image. 

Now, standing at the foot of Tor Gvalch’ca, looking up at the hole in the sky through which he could see a blue and green sphere of such size that his mind could barely understand it, its surface streaked with white that could only be clouds--all those fanciful concepts he had only ever read about in books suddenly made far too much sense and had become far too real. 

Avallac’h had warned him that Ciri held a great and terrible power, one more dangerous than anything else Geralt would ever meet or understand. Geralt had, with great unwillingness, been forced to believe Avallac'h after repeated displays of Ciri’s capabilities. 

But _ this _ \--an entire new world above him, the earth below him trembling as though tearing apart--all his fears of fatherhood faded into obscurity beside it. He had thought himself unprepared to have a child who bled and wept and needed him to be both gentle and stern. Now he _knew_ himself to be unprepared for a Child of the Elder Blood. 

But watching Ciri stand at the aperture of yet another world, with Eredin’s blood still sticky on her blade, preparing herself to undertake a bigger and more heroic task than any Geralt himself could ever imagine...Geralt realized that in this one moment, at least, he knew what to do. 

“I love you,” Geralt called as Ciri took a step toward that doorway. “I’m so proud of you.”

For perhaps the final time she turned to look at him. She smiled.

If those were the last words either of them heard, Geralt thought, then if there was an afterlife, he would meet Eskel there and Eskel would be proud of him, too.


	40. Victor and Gascoigne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter I've written my way through the entire plot of the main game! Now, time to skip over Hearts of Stone and go straight to Blood & Wine.

They passed the winter in White Orchard. Not just Geralt and Eskel and Ciri, but Dandelion, Priscilla, and Zoltan as well. They  _ would _ have wintered in Novigrad itself, in Dandelion’s brothel, but the turmoil in the city due to Radovid’s death and Redania suddenly becoming a vassal state of Nilfgaard meant that nobody wanted to bet their lives on the goodwill of the Temple Guard and the witch hunters. Emhyr had sent word via Ciri that the Temple Guard would soon be removed from power in the city, but ‘soon’ in this case meant ‘within a year’. (It had been difficult relocating Hattori’s forge and Elihal’s tailor business south to Vizima once the snows had begun. But as Ciri was now heir apparent, Emhyr granted her any little thing that she wanted. That apparently included using a small brigade of imperial troops to help rescue Geralt’s friends.)

Letho had, in a strange way, inherited Kaer Morhen. Geralt did not envy him the cold and lonely months he spent there, but he had plenty of stored food and firewood, and perhaps Letho did not feel the emptiness of the halls as keenly as Geralt and Eskel and Lambert did. As none of the Witchers of the School of the Wolf planned to return and Letho had wanted to establish a new Witcher school, well...it had seemed a destined match. 

Eskel still disliked Letho, but at least he did not seem inclined to try to oust him from Kaer Morhen, or stop him from using it for his purposes. And as Ciri was increasingly exercising her political power and Letho had fought for her at the Battle of Kaer Morhen, Emhyr did not try to stop Letho either. 

When Geralt had told Mislav in the early fall to expect Witchers to visit him when they passed through, neither of them had anticipated those Witchers visiting him several times a week every week for three months straight. Mislav warmed to the company, softening the longer that Geralt, Eskel, Ciri, Dandelion, Priscilla, and Zoltan stayed. Given the way Zoltan and Mislav were starting to look at one another, Geralt rather thought another dalliance might soon begin. Zoltan devoted himself to his friends just as Mislav had devoted himself to White Orchard. They each were capable of a kind of fixed devotion that few others could sustain.

More than three months spent at Eskel’s side had softened things between them. Eskel seemed to almost believe Geralt now when he voiced his desire and affection. Geralt himself thought that, with another few years, Eskel’s fears might even subside completely. 

When spring rolled around and Ciri had long since left to join Emhyr in Novigrad, Eskel and Geralt left themselves. For two Witchers, a small town like White Orchard quickly grew claustrophobic, even despite such pleasant company. 

They rode north, on a contract from Emhyr to clear out nests of endrega and arachae along the borders of Redania. Emhyr had even offered extra for them to destroy ghoul nests, burn corpses, and cull any lingering necrophages. They were both pleased with the request, and the promised reward.

Near nightfall on the roadside near their destination, they found the camp of two charming bards by the names of Victor and Gascoigne. The bards, not unlike Dandelion, were delighted with every bit of information about a Witcher’s lifestyle and feats, and seemed pleased beyond words to discover themselves in the company of not just _one_ Witcher but two. 

The way the two looked Geralt up and down--and even made eyes at Eskel--raised some interesting possibilities. “Is there a land where I might find more of your kind?” Gascoigne asked, doe-eyed and wistful as he glanced back and forth between Geralt and Eskel.

Eskel had discussed possibilities like this with Geralt during their months together. His need for Geralt’s full attention had relaxed as his confidence in Geralt’s commitment had grown. Eskel had several times encouraged Geralt to sleep with Zoltan, once even with Eskel himself present. (Dandelion was still a much more fraught dalliance as far as Eskel was concerned. It had been obvious to Eskel that Geralt’s feelings for Dandelion were much more passionate, and as a result more frightening to Eskel.)

So when Victor and Gascoigne offered strong vodka and lingering eye contact to the two Witchers, they stepped aside briefly to have a conversation. 

“Do you want this?” Geralt asked, gaze intent upon Eskel’s face. 

“They only want you,” he huffed, usual diffidence heightened at the prospect of someone new. 

“If that’s true, then it removes the need to make a choice,” Geralt said simply, shrugging. He smiled. “You’ve spoiled me rotten, Eskel. You know you have. Going to bed with you every night, waking up with you every morning--why bother to fuck two men on the road when you’re here, unless it’s something I do with you? If they won’t take us both, then they can’t have either.”

For several seconds Eskel stared at Geralt. Then he gave his own lopsided grin in return. 

It turned out that Victor and Gascoigne were more than willing to try their hands at two Witchers. By the time the night ended, everyone had come at least once, they were all thoroughly drunk, and Geralt considered it one of the finest nights he'd had since leaving White Orchard. 

Which made it all the more irksome to wake up dry-mouthed with his and Eskel’s swords, armor, pack, and saddlebags missing. The horses had been left behind, though probably not from lack of trying; blood on the ground and threads caught on Skorpion’s horseshoe showed that someone had been kicked hard enough to break skin. Skorpion did not like being touched by strangers.

It thankfully took no more than an hour of tracking to locate Victor and Gascoigne in a nearby village. Both men greeted the sight of Geralt and Eskel with equal shock and dismay. At least t hey handed over the stolen belongings without any attempt to fight. 

“So, then, we are square, even good, yes?” Gascoigne pleaded. 

Geralt glanced at Eskel, whose face was pinched into a vicious scowl. Geralt knew already that this would set Eskel back yet  _ again _ in trusting that anyone wanted him. So Geralt held out his hand. 

“It’ll be square when you give me the gold you’ve fleeced off men who _weren’t_ Witchers,” he growled. “You must have a heavy purse to have afforded that much vodka. And that’s a fine lute you’re carrying, and fine clothing you wear, so I assume you’ve been doing this awhile. You'll probably carry on doing it after we leave, too.”

Looking miserable, Gascoigne dug a purse out of the inside hip of his breeches. Victor pulled out his own, much heavier, bag. 

Gascoigne gaped at it. “You told me you had divided it evenly!” he screeched, then seemed to realize Eskel was still present and glaring daggers at him. “I, well, that is, words cannot express how sorry I am about the--ahh--incident?” he tried, hastily snatching the bag out of Victor’s hands and passing it to Eskel. 

“It was a bit of a lark, a jest!” Victor pleaded, glancing back and forth between the two Witchers. “We meant to bring it all back, I swear!”

“Meant to bring it all back to your _fence_, you mean,” Eskel spat, and then punched Victor in the face. 

The fact that this was _all_ he did struck Geralt as an act of supreme restraint. 

Once they were armed and armored again, with Roach and Skorpion’s saddlebags secured and the road spreading out before them, Eskel sighed. 

“Bet that doesn’t happen to  _ you _ when you’re alone.”

“Last time was two years ago,” Geralt admitted. It was another embarrassing side-effect of sleeping around which he didn't like admitting to Eskel. _Most_ of the time Geralt went away with just a good memory, but sometimes he woke up missing valuables as well as his bedmate. "I'm well-known enough that people don't do it as often as they used to."

“Knew I shouldn’t have believed they wanted me,” Eskel muttered, just loud enough for Geralt to hear him. 

“Hey!” Geralt snapped. “None of that! It’s rotten that this happened, but we made money off it and you’ve still got me, all right?”

When Eskel nodded at this, expression softening just a little, Geralt dived into the opening Eskel had given him, determined to make this right. 

“If you want,” he bargained, “you can keep me from coming for another week. See how that makes you feel, hm?”

The wolfish grin this earned Geralt told him he’d guessed right.

“Holding you to that,” Eskel said. 

Working through nests of endrega tired them out that night. But the next morning--and the night after--Eskel tested his power over Geralt to the limit. 

By the end of the week, with Geralt half-crazed at the smell of Eskel’s post-fight sweat, Eskel had forgotten all about Victor and Gascoigne. 


	41. Milton and Palmerin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also not exactly a ship chapter, but the first of the Blood and Wine ones!

Geralt couldn’t disguise the wording of the poster from Eskel. Addressed to Geralt himself by name and posted on the notice boards of several different towns, it stated that “Only the Most Famous Among Witchers has the ability to destroy the Beast.” Geralt worried that this implicit rejection of other Witchers would upset Eskel, but he merely took the notice and looked at it. 

“Remember you telling me you knew the Duchess of Toussaint.”

Geralt nodded. “I know the two knights whose signature is on this poster, too.”

When Eskel’s eyes lifted from rereading the words, he caught Geralt in a narrow-eyed stare. 

“You fucked them?”

For once, Geralt could say that no, he hadn’t slept with either of them, though with some embarrassment he had to admit that it hadn’t been from lack of interest on his part. They were both handsome, well-built men, or had been when Geralt had last seen them. He had in fact made subtle advances on each of them. While the attitudes toward such dalliances was much relaxed in the south, neither of them had shown any interest. 

As Geralt and Eskel had long since completed their contract for Emhyr (and received their generous payment for it), they made their way toward the town where the two Toussaintois knights had said they would be waiting. 

Just as Geralt had worried that the wording of the request for aid would offend Eskel, Geralt also worried that the knights would reject the presence of a second Witcher. But once they arrived at the meeting place, Geralt realized how silly that fear had been. Palmerin and Milton greeted Eskel as a great boon, only growing more delighted still when Geralt introduced Eskel as a fellow member of the School of the Wolf. 

The long ride south proved exceedingly pleasant. Palmerin and Milton had been given the coin with which to acquire food and lodgings for themselves and their anticipated Witcher nearly the whole way, which meant hot meals twice daily and sleeping in actual beds with closing doors most nights.

Outwardly the knights remarked upon both the frugality and fraternity of Witchers when Geralt and Eskel stated they they would share a room and a bed. But Geralt knew that the remarks were as good as the knights declaring their understanding and blessing upon Geralt’s relationship. The Toussaintois loved romance, and Palmerin and Milton were no exception. The indulgent smiles they turned upon Eskel the next morning suggested they now viewed their Witcher companions as devoted lovers--which was not actually wrong, Geralt thought. The questions they asked about how long Eskel and Geralt had known each other and how many years they had been separated upon the Path, followed by the knights’ expressions of sympathy and declarations of remorse at so many painful partings, further cemented the fact that the knights understood perfectly well what they were seeing. 

This handily removed the need for secrecy. Which meant that every room Eskel shared with Geralt, even when it shared a wall with one of the knights’ rooms, was a room in which they fucked. 

One night, Eskel lay at Geralt’s side. They’d just finished the first round. The taste of Eskel was still warm in Geralt’s mouth and they were both still hard. With one hand Eskel idly played with Geralt’s balls, rolling them in their loose skin before toying with the soft bump behind them. 

“Watching you get fucked sometimes isn’t so bad,” Eskel admitted in Geralt’s ear. “All the pleasure of seeing you lose it, no work whatsoever. I’m imagining you with both of them. Milton and Palmerin.”

Geralt felt him smile when Geralt’s prick jumped. Eskel nuzzled along his cheekbone, teasing Geralt with the possibility of a kiss. Geralt’s lips and jaw were already sore but he still wanted it. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Eskel purred. “One in your mouth, one having you from behind. How fast do you think you’d come? I’d give odds at less than three minutes.”

“Fuck you,” Geralt muttered, voice still raspy. 

“Nahh. Need to know a man fairly well before I'll let him do that to me. But maybe I’d let one of them do it just to make you watch. You’d like that too, I bet.”

The image of it was enough to get another jolt of Geralt’s eager cock, this time right into Eskel’s palm. He wrapped Geralt in a loose grip, not really stroking yet, just idly drawing the foreskin back and forth. 

“You’d like seeing me on my back for one of them, huh? Or maybe you’d like to see them both suck me. You’re eager enough for it that I’d maybe have to tie you down to keep you from getting down on your knees beside them.”

“Dammit,” Geralt swore, shoving his own hand down between them to try to take care of himself. 

Eskel smacked his wrist away. He wedged it under his belly instead, keeping Geralt from trying again as Eskel kept right on talking. The words were slow, thoughtful like the pace of Eskel's arm, fantasies he shared every time he thought of a new one. By the time he let Geralt come, Geralt was panting miserably into Eskel’s collarbone.

He had a hard time keeping his face Witcher-calm when he saw Milton and Palmerin again over breakfast, mind immediately conjuring up the fantasies of last night. 

Both Witchers and knights arrived in Toussaint with high spirits. 

Examining the site of a freshly-discovered corpse, diving for clues in scurver-infested waters, and then fighting said scurvers dampened Geralt and Eskel’s spirits (and clothing) a great deal. But even that wasn’t so bad. It was early summer in Toussaint, the sun shone hot and bright upon them, and their clothing was mostly dry by the time they arrived at a local vineyard to examine the body itself. 

They were greeted by a group of Beauclair guardsmen, who escorted them to the door of the vineyard’s cellar where the body was being kept in the cold. 

But just as they entered the cool shady passageway, Eskel grabbed Geralt’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Puzzled, the guards stopped several paces ahead of them, looking back to check why they had halted. 

“There’s something here,” Eskel said in a low voice, looking right at Geralt. “My medallion is trembling.”

Eskel had always been more sensitive to magic. Geralt couldn’t feel his own medallion moving on his chest, but when he put his fingers to it, there was just enough vibration to feel it on his fingertips. He nodded.

“Leave us,” Geralt instructed the guards. “There is something down here in the cellars. Whatever it is, it is Witcher business.”

One of the guards scoffed, clearly thinking this ridiculous. “We are not cowards who will run for no reason! And we have been present all afternoon patrolling the courtyard! Nothing could have got past us!”

“Some monsters can become invisible,” Eskel told him bluntly. “Some can walk so quietly that humans cannot hear them. Others are intelligent enough to watch the patrol routes and sneak in when everyone is facing a different direction.”

When the first guard sneered again, however, his colleague intervened. 

“These are professionals,” he told his comrade, “hired by the Duchess herself and brought specially all the way from the North. Do you wish to second-guess the Duchess?”

Swayed by this logic, both guards left them, instead taking up places at the exit. 

Geralt and Eskel kept walking. They both listened cautiously, hands on the hilts of their swords. 

When they entered the cellar itself, a hooded figure stood bent over the corpse. It stuffed something into a bag before turning to stare at them, revealing a pale face and long dark hair. She clutched the bag in her hands.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Geralt asked, not removing his hand from his silver sword. His medallion trembled much harder now, clearly reacting to either the person or something else in this room. There were relatively few monsters which could appear this human--dopplers and certain species of vampires were the most likely. If this woman was a vampire, they needed to be on their guard. 

The woman said nothing, eyes glancing back and forth between them.

“We don’t have to fight,” Eskel told her then, and Geralt nodded along. “Far as we know, you’ve killed no one and hurt nothing. What did you take from the corpse?”

“Nothing that belongs to it,” she replied, not taking her eyes away from them for even a moment. “Let me go and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“There are guards outside that are on alert,” Geralt told her. “Now, maybe you’re something that could kill two Witchers _ and _ however many guards are outside. I doubt it, but it’s always possible to be wrong. More likely you’ll wind up dead, cut apart by our silver swords, and nobody will be any happier then.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. Then her nostrils flared and she drew a deep breath. 

Bruxa often looked like human women right up until they didn’t, and they used their screams as a weapon. Instinctively Geralt raised a Quen shield, its light flickering over his skin, and she flinched away. 

“You’re Witchers,” she told them angrily, pulling the bagged item close to her chest like a ward. Whatever it was, it was small, no larger than the hilt of a sword, and seemed flexible given the way she held it. “You want to kill me anyway. That is what Witchers do to everything they encounter which is different!”

Realizing he might have just escalated the situation, Geralt dropped his sword arm, prompting Eskel to do the same. 

“I apologize,” Geralt said. “We are trained to be suspicious, it’s true. But if you mean us no harm, we mean you no harm.” He gestured at the corpse behind her with his chin. “Clearly you know something about that.”

She stayed silent, breathing in and out through her nose, until her nostrils again flared and she visibly lifted her nose, tilting her face back and forth. Scenting the air. 

That wasn’t the response Geralt had expected. Dopplers had no more than a human sense of smell, and while vampires had very keen noses, they weren’t fussy about scents like horse and sweat which humans might find objectionable. Blood was usually the only smell guaranteed to get a vampire’s attention, but neither Geralt nor Eskel had any recent blood on their clothes, and the stench of the waterlogged corpse was filling the cellar anyway.

“We’re just here to examine the body,” Eskel told her then. “Show us what you want to take and maybe we can even let you keep it. We just want to understand what’s going on.”

“You understand nothing and care even less!” she spat at them. The next moment she vanished. Both Witchers immediately drew their swords. 

“Bruxa,” Eskel muttered, and they closed in together side by side in the doorway, blades at the ready. Bruxa couldn't fully dissolve into mist as higher vampires could, but they could make themselves invisible. Which meant that with the exit blocked she could not escape without getting past them. Quen glimmered gold around both of them as they prepared for the inevitable attack. 

A deep inhale from far too close was all the warning they got before she blasted them with her shriek, instantly bursting their shields and knocking them both into the doorway itself. Geralt stumbled, Eskel falling to one knee, but Eskel swung his sword out on instinct--and Geralt heard it connect. 

The bruxa flickered back into visibility, clutching her bleeding shoulder, face losing its humanity as she snarled in pain and revealed her long fangs and gaunt features. Vanishing again, she sidestepped Eskel’s next blow. Geralt felt the tip of his own sword catch on something as he swung, but he had no wish to kill her and he pulled the blow. She shoved him aside, inhuman strength slamming him sideways, and then sprinting footsteps ran past him. 

Eskel gave chase while Geralt was still shaking his head--like all of Eskel's magic, his shields were stronger and longer-lasting than Geralt’s. Which meant that Eskel was running as Geralt stood still reeling against the wall. 

Which was when he noticed that the bruxa had dropped the object she came for. Quickly he darted over, picking it up and stuffing it into the small bag at his hip before running after Eksel. 

By the time he reached the bright daylight of the open air, however, it was clear that the bruxa had escaped. All it took was one glance between Eskel and Geralt--and when Geralt jerked his chin away from the door, Eskel ran after their quarry. He would be able to track her by her footprints and blood trail, at least for some ways, while Geralt could stay here to address the guards and examine the body. 

“Where is he going? What just happened?” the grumpy guard demanded at once. 

Geralt glared at him, in no mood for this while his ears were ringing and his head felt like a struck gong. He’d be nauseated and headachey all day now. He didn’t envy Eskel having to track in this condition. 

“Consider yourselves lucky to be alive,” Geralt told them. “That was a kind of vampire. If she had wanted to kill you, you’d all be dead.” He gestured at Eskel. “My friend will track her. I will finish examining the body.”

The loud-mouthed guard started to protest but Geralt just ignored him, marching back into the cool dark room where at least the sunlight didn’t make his headache worse. 

Once he arrived in the deepest cellar, he pulled the object out his hip satchel. But when he opened the drawstring, he looked in shock over at to the waterlogged corpse before he realized that what he held could not possibly be a part of it. When he came to that conclusion, he reached into the bag and pulled out its contents. 

It was a severed right hand. Human in appearance and on the large side. Its nails were long, with charcoal and ink darkening the fingertips and underneath the nails. Yet it showed no signs of water damage even though it must have been recovered with the corpse, which Geralt knew had been submerged for more than a day, and the hand certainly smelled of river water. Stranger still, the veins on the back of the hand were still inflated as though attached to a living body. Geralt could perhaps have viewed that as normal if there had been something tight around the wrist keeping the blood in place, but the wrist was bare and the cut that had severed the limb was smooth as though made by a very sharp blade.

Strangest of all: the hand was still warm, fingers twitching against Geralt’s palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who have played the game/seen it played will see that I've already made changes to the plot even beyond just including Eskel in it. In my opinion, most of the major conflicts in the Blood and Wine main plot don't make sense, and many of them could be avoided or lessened by talking. So, that's what's gonna happen here. Because I am Soft and I just want Witchers and vampires to be happy.


	42. The Gifting of Corvo Bianco

The mess with the tourney and the shaelmaar would have been much, much worse if Eskel hadn’t been there. Shaelmaar were the kinds of monsters which killed Witchers: fast, not clever enough to talk to, but vicious enough to smash a man to bits and then stomp on the remains. With two Witchers, however, they got it stunned and killed in record time. 

Watching the pure shock on Eskel’s face as the crowds in the stands shouted and stamped and cried out their approval made the stupidity of the whole situation worth it. The shaelmaar had gone down so fast it hadn’t had time to boom and deafen them. Eskel now looked stunned regardless. 

And when the Duchess herself came down to praise them, her pleased gaze alighting just as long on Eskel as on Geralt, Eskel ducked his chin and went quiet. 

More work still awaited them, however, so the Duchess led them away from the tourney to discuss it. First came the basic logistics of working with the local guardsmen and coping with their dislike of outsiders hired to do what they perceived as their job. Business as usual for both Eskel and Geralt. 

Both Witchers were blindsided, however, left staring and near-wordless, by what happened next.

“For enduring the leagues of travel and coming to the aid of our beautiful Toussaint, we’ve decided you shall receive the deed to a vineyard, Corvo Bianco,” the Duchess declared with a wave of one beautifully-manicured hand. 

For a second Geralt didn’t understand the words. Then they sank in, leaving him blinking in shock as a servant brought forward a pillow on which lay a sheet of creamy vellum, packed with legal text and signed and sealed with the Duchess’s marks. On top of the vellum, weighing it into the cushion, was a set of keys on an iron ring. 

Corvo Bianco was the vineyard they had visited that morning to examine the body. Geralt had thought little of it at the time, more concerned with the corpse than the estate itself. He recalled, now, that both the vineyards and the assemblage of buildings had needed work, having the appearance of a place that had stood unoccupied for at least a year. It must have been sold to the ducal chancellory and left empty in anticipation of a new owner. 

But even a run-down estate and vineyard were more than any Witcher could ever normally expect. An owned house meant a consistent place to live. A working vineyard meant an income independent of Witcher contracts. 

The Duchess smiled, eyes sliding between Eskel and Geralt with her eyebrows raised knowingly. “The original deed has been amended after we spoke to Milton de Peyrac-Peyran earlier today. When he told us that he had located not just Geralt of Rivia, as we requested, but a _ second _ Witcher of the same illustrious school, we of course made the necessary arrangements. The title to the vineyard is in both of your names and shall be given to you at once. Surely you’ll need lodgings while you hunt! A generous sum of coin awaits you once you have slain the Beast.”

Geralt had known the Duchess was a woman prone to largesse, who loved both luxury and generosity in equal measure. He had also known she was a passionate romantic, as evidenced by her famous love affair with Dandelion and her equally famous fury at his infidelity. But _ this _ gift--Milton de Peyrac-Peyran must not only have informed the Duchess of Eskel’s arrival but also of Geralt’s relationship with him. Because that sheet of parchment and set of keys was the legal equivalent of the Duchess declaring Eskel and Geralt _married._ In Toussaint, equal ownership of property was a privilege normally reserved for spouses, who stood together as one unit in the eyes of the law. 

Geralt cast an overwhelmed look at Eskel, who stared back at him with the wide eyes of a man desperately trying not to give away what he felt and failing. 

Geralt wanted to kiss him. He wanted to pull Eskel aside into some private place and choke on his cock till reflexive tears came down Geralt’s face. He wanted to tell Eskel that even though this hadn't happened because of Geralt’s design it was nonetheless exactly what he wished.

But this was neither the time nor the place. 

“Lovely, generous gesture, Your Grace,” Geralt managed, voice trembling only a little as he picked up the keys and Eskel picked up the deed and they both stared down at the items in disbelief. Helplessly, Geralt shifted to the side, closing the space between himself and Eskel so their shoulders touched. 

Eskel leaned into the contact. He also let out a long, shaking exhalation that was clearly audible to the others present. 

They held their _mutual retirement_ in their hands. They held a release from the Path. They held the assurance that if their bodies ever failed due to age or injury or any other reason, that they could live in peace rather than being forced to choose a warrior’s self-destruction over a slow death as a beggar in the streets. 

“We are also informed that you fought some monster together in your new home already,” the Duchess continued, clearly delighted with the reaction to her gift. “And nothing enhances a wine’s reputation better than a grim legend. Or a _ romantic _ one.” Her smile was pure self-satisfaction now. 

Somehow Geralt and Eskel made it through the conversation that followed. Geralt could feel the keys burning a hole in his hip satchel the whole time. He imagined the deed to the estate felt much the same to Eskel. 

Geralt couldn't help thinking that everything that followed after was taking place on his wedding day. It was a ridiculous thought--the gifting of a title and lands was not a wedding, not by any stretch of the imagination. And as wedding activities went, a murder investigation and sudden high-speed treasure hunt through the palace gardens to prevent _ another _ murder was not exactly typical. But when Geralt was sprinting through the royal gardens and saw Eskel running down another path to greet him, Geralt realized he couldn’t imagine a more fitting event for the joining of two Witchers. Their lives were about hunting monsters--and here they were hunting a monster together! With only one Witcher they might not have been fast enough, but with two, together, so much more was possible. 

Even so they arrived only just in time, opening the door to the greenhouse and startling a looming figure as it stood over a terrified Milton. The figure turned just long enough to see them before jumping through the greenhouse window and sprinting across the lawns. Its speed almost defied even the capacity of a Witcher’s sight to follow. And when it simply vanished, reappearing on the other side of the river, Geralt understood: the Beast was another vampire. Possibly even a _ higher _ vampire. 

Geralt’s mind was occupied with the chase, but a tiny thought half-hidden below everything else said that even if this _ was _ a higher vampire, if one or both of them died as a result of confronting it, at least they had gotten to have today, together. 

The dark figure darted into a ramshackle warehouse by the waterfront, slamming the door behind it. Eskel’s rapid-fire Aard blew the door apart. Metal rang in the night as they both drew their silver swords.

For a brief moment they paused, meeting each other’s eyes, before Eskel nodded and Geralt returned the gesture and they entered the dim space side by side. Quen rippled into place over both of them, briefly illuminating the walls. 

“I’m here,” said a deep voice from the rafters. 

Instinctively Geralt turned his back to Eskel, moving so that anything that wished to strike at them would have to come at one of them from the front. They each looked upwards, just able to make out a tall shape in the darkness. In a few moments their eyes would adjust to the moonlight pouring in through the windows near the roof, but for now--

Geralt reached into his hip satchel, fingers touching the keyring before he pulled out the severed hand. It twitched again at his touch. Holding it aloft, he called, “This belong to you?”

Maybe returning what the Beast had lost would be taken as a peace offering. The shape hadn’t _ looked _ like it was missing a hand, but what else did they have to offer?

“It did. But you may keep it! I’ve a new one,” the voice called down.

Until now there had been the possibility that this was only a katakan--tough, fast, dangerous, but well within the capacity of an experienced Witcher. But no katakan could regrow whole limbs. 

Hope flickered out and in its place cold resignation crept over Geralt’s skin. The only possible way to kill a higher vampire was when they were already surprised or incapacitated in some way. This one was neither. 

Bright, pale eyes shone out in the darkness above them. 

“I do not know you,” the voice said then. “And I’ve done you no harm. Yet you have hurt a bruxa who was dear to me and now you pursue me. Why?”

“The bruxa attacked us first,” Eskel stated, his voice low and calm. “And you’ve killed three innocent people that we know of. That is why we are here.”

A low, rumbling growl emanated down at them. “And _you?_ How many innocents have _ you _ cut down?”

Before Eskel could say anything, Geralt barked out, “More than I would wish on anyone, including you! Your murders--they’re calculated, set up to humiliate your targets and point out fault. So maybe you have a good reason for what you’ve done! Tell us why you’re doing this, and perhaps you don’t need to be the next one we fight.”

It was empty bravado. Geralt doubted they would be able to do anything other than die if that was what this creature wanted. 

“I have no wish to hurt you, but I cannot let you stop me,” the vampire said, sounding truly upset now. “I’ve something to do still.”

“And what is that?” Eskel asked, voice admirably calm even though both Geralt and the vampire could sense the way Eskel’s heart beat under his armor. 

The eyes vanished. In the ensuing silence, they both heard the beams of the warehouse creak in the sudden absence of weight upon them. 

Geralt turned just in time to see a monstrous face far too close to him. He pulled back, raising his sword. 

But the vampire merely stood, regarding them both, fangs bulging out of his lips and his eyes a shocking pale blue. One second passed, then another, as the three of them stared at one another. 

Then the vampire’s ridged nostrils flared wide as he inhaled. His eyes widened. 

“No,” he said, the word low and small as though he were saying it to himself. He moved closer, ignoring the silver blades as though they were not there. “No. It can’t be.”

In a gesture of trust, as the vampire had not yet attacked nor even made use of very aggressive speech, Geralt lowered his blade to his side. 

Instantly the vampire was in his space. The inhuman visage tilted close to his, inhaling his air open-mouthed to catch the scent better. Hot breath gusted over Geralt’s cheek. 

Before Geralt could even begin to process this, the vampire turned to Eskel instead. Eskel flinched away, sword coming between them, but the vampire merely set his hand upon it and pushed it down as though it were nothing more than a wooden toy. 

The creature’s face stopped a mere finger’s-breadth from Eskel’s throat. The vampire’s deep, slow inhalations and sharp exhalations were loud in the silence. Frozen and helpless, Eskel’s own eyes shone as he stared beseechingly at Geralt and waited to see what would happen to him. 

All at once the creature threw itself backwards, stumbling away from them both. 

“No no _no,”_ it repeated. “No, not again, this cannot be happening!”

It vanished. For the briefest flash they saw it again across the room before something _ else _ suddenly appeared between them, grasping at the vampire’s arms even as it struggled to pull away. 

“You were to stay where you were! Regenerate!” the vampire hissed, struggling against what had to be a horrifyingly strong grip. 

“I know you’re in trouble,” the new, smaller figure said, tone passionate as it pulled the vampire closer into its embrace. “I can help, please _ let _ me--”

“I’ll help myself!” the vampire cried, and then the new figure was holding onto nothing, clutching at empty air. 

Geralt stared. The new voice, the slender chest it came from--it was so much like--

Narrow shoulders slumping with a sigh of defeat as it flexed its empty hands, the figure turned, revealing a familiar face. 

“Hello, Geralt,” Regis said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like getting surprise-married to your childhood sweetheart by your new employer, being given a honeymoon cottage and retirement moneymaker, having near-death experiences, getting sniffed-on by a guy with massive fangs, and then running into your dead boyfriend all in one day.


	43. Meeting Regis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sucked to write!! This scene in the game is like 5-10 minutes of just Regis delivering exposition. There's tons of nice details about himself and Dettlaff in the things he says, which is cool, while Geralt is rude and shitty in this scene for No Fucking Reason, which is much less cool. But all that means is that it put me in an awkward position as the writer of this particular fic. Certain things needed to occur during this scene, which meant I couldn't just skip over it, but I also didn't want to just C&P the game lines, because that'd be boring as hell to read. This is the best I feel able to do. I've rewritten most of this twice as it is. It's got some lines from the game, some totally new ones added in, and some which are altered versions of what the game gives us. 
> 
> [Here's a version of the scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEY91MaG0KM) if you want to watch it. It's way more pointlessly violent than in my fic, so warning for that, but it's otherwise one of the better game scenes.

_ “Regis?” _ Geralt gasped. Maybe those features were a trick of the moonlight, maybe he was just dizzy from his sprint here, maybe panic was making him see and hear things, because this--this couldn’t be--

“Yes, it’s me,” Regis replied, tone gentle like someone talking to a skittish horse. 

“You--you’re all right?” was all Geralt could think to say. Because Regis had _ died _ \--nothing could survive what Vilgefortz had done, surely, not even a higher vampire.

But the person now standing before Geralt undeniably _ looked _ like Regis. He was the right height and size, the top of his head only reaching Geralt’s nose. A small, unassuming shape in muted greys and blacks. 

He moved carefully forward, holding out his hands. 

On a day that had been less strange to begin with, Geralt might have been more cautious. But on this one, in which he’d _ already _ been gifted a future right out of his half-formed daydreams of happily ever after, Geralt did not hesitate to sheath his sword and run toward the smaller man. 

As he wrapped Regis in his arms, the fragrance of him hit Geralt in a wave. Geralt could, given time, pick out each individual element that composed the scent he associated with Regis. A particular cocktail of herbal smells had always lingered around Regis’s clothes and hair and hands. Below that was a faint, just barely noticeable odor that was _ like _ that of a human body without quite touching it. It had haunted Geralt’s dreams for months after Stygga. 

And it was still the same now. A mental weight Geralt had long since ceased to even feel lifted from him, leaving behind a wild and giddy relief. Laughing in shock, Geralt buried his nose in the grey hair just before Regis lifted him by the waist and spun him around.

“We’ve not seen one another in ages, my dear,” Regis smiled when Geralt finally withdrew enough to look at him again. “At least in human terms, that is.”

To Geralt’s dismay, he realized then that Regis looked much, much older, something Geralt would not have thought possible in a vampire. When they had met, Regis had looked like a man in his forties. But even for a human, the intervening years should not have been enough to account for the changes, and Regis was no human. The lines around Regis’s eyes and mouth and on his brow were far deeper-cut. Along with them went an even higher receded hairline, sunken eyes bruised with exhaustion, and hair that now held far more white than grey. Whatever had brought him back to life had done a poor job, seemingly, or had aged him in some way that was perhaps more spiritual than physical. 

“How’s this even possible?” Geralt demanded. “Last I saw you--”

“I was a bubbling, shapeless smear, I know. I’ll admit it’s probably the worst I’ve ever looked, and that’s saying something given my history.” Regis gave Geralt a wry expression. “I’m in somewhat better shape now, as you can see. Hardly peak form, still, I’ll admit that, but I daresay that were I human, folk would still think me a demigod.” 

He waggled his eyebrows at Geralt, who couldn’t help smiling back with a shake of his head. 

But he sobered just as fast. “I’m sorry,” he began. “What happened at Stygga--it was _ my _ fault. And I never...never got a chance to apologize.” He swallowed hard. He couldn’t cry, Witchers were unable, but that didn’t stop his voice from cracking on the words. The guilt had _ eaten _ at him and still did. Regis had been something priceless and beautiful in an ugly world, something made to last and go _ on _ being beautiful into an endless future. And he had _ died _ for Geralt. It had been a vile weight to carry. 

But Regis waved this away like a pesky fly. “No need, Geralt. Bygones. I did not have to join you on that expedition, no one twisted my arm.”

“Wait,” Eskel interrupted from behind them, staring hard at Regis before turning his gaze on Geralt. “This is_ that _ Regis? Your lover who died?”

“Ah, so your companion knows about that, too,” Regis replied, answering Eskel’s question before Geralt could. “That’s helpful, one less thing to attempt to conceal.”

Regis then pulled away from Geralt (who let him go only with great reluctance) and approached Eskel before bending his neck and setting his right hand on his chest in an abbreviated bow. Not deep enough to be embarrassing, but enough to show respect. Eskel’s large frame dwarfed Regis even more than Geralt’s did. 

“It is my very great pleasure to meet another Witcher, especially one of Geralt’s school. I go by Regis.”

“I’m Eskel, his partner. How do you know I’m from the same school?” Eskel asked, tone unfriendly and eyes narrowing. 

“By your smell, of course. Witchers, with their altered physiology, have a scent that is completely distinct from that of humans. And yours is very similar to Geralt’s, which I admit is a surprise. While I have not made a study of it, given that Witchers who will allow me to analyze their scent are few and far between, I nonetheless might theorize that members of the various Witcher Schools could have their origins identified by scent alone.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, crossing his arms behind his back and seeming like he would launch into one of his long rambles. 

But then Regis stopped, looking sharply at Eskel before he too, just like the other vampire, leaned in to sniff more actively. A moment later, Regis let out a bark of laughter. 

“Oh dear, this _ is _ unexpected.”

“What is?” Eskel asked, tone exasperated. “Why do people keep _ smelling _ me? I just smell like horse and unwashed body!”

“That’s untrue, there are traces of necrophage entrails, river water, bruxa blood, rotting human corpse, and various Witcher concoctions on your armor and skin,” Regis corrected. “But all that is beside the point. _Much_ more significantly, you smell like--” For a moment he paused, mouth open, before stopping himself with a finger on his chin and a thoughtful expression. “Well, no, I do not believe that here and now, from my lips, is the right time for you to be told this. Hmm.”

“Told _ what?” _ Eskel demanded. “What’s going on!”

Regis refused to answer. Instead he pulled away from both Witchers, seating himself on a nearby wooden crate with a sigh. The conversation that followed--overly complex and wordy, because this was Regis--relieved Geralt a great deal. The other higher vampire, who had escaped, turned out to be named Dettlaff. Regis reported that Dettlaff _ normally _ had no violent inclinations at all. Which meant something was forcing him to do this. 

Yet as Geralt listened to Regis relate this good news, a creeping discomfort grew inside him nonetheless. That he might not have to find a way to destroy an immortal creature both faster and stronger than himself was a tremendous boon. But...but Geralt had just begun to accept that Eskel could be both the first and _ last _ meaningful lover in his life, and moreover that Geralt could even be _ happy _ that way. For Regis to reappear _ now, _ of all possible days--now that Geralt and Eskel had both the money and the land to settle down with each other after more than seven decades spent mostly apart--was this fate’s way of laughing at Geralt yet again? Setting out a beautiful future with one lover in front of him, and then bringing another back from the dead in the same day? Was this a sign not of the world _ righting _ itself but that everything would inevitably go wrong?

“So this Dettlaff,” Eskel said to Regis, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s your...friend?”

Eskel was too used to Geralt and living in the North to ask outright if Dettlaff was Regis’s lover. But the fact that Eskel was asking it at all, especially _ now, _ made it clear that Eskel felt threatened and wished to evaluate the severity of the threat. That he _again_ felt anxious about his place at Geralt’s side. 

“You _ might _ call it that,” Regis smiled at Eskel, eyes all warm amusement. “To understand what he is to me, you must understand that Dettlaff is, above all else, loyal,” Regis informed them. “It takes worryingly little to earn his trust, as he is...ah, very naive, in a way. I should not have merited his attention. In my youth, I will freely admit that I deserved no commitment whatsoever from anyone. And I met Dettlaff but a handful of times in our younger years, and counseled him on a matter of concern to him on just one of those occasions. He remembered that for hundreds of years. And when he found what was left of me...” He turned his black eyes to Geralt then. “Vilgefortz melted my body. Dettlaff thus had a choice: to leave me where I was, or to care for me and nurture my remains. He chose the latter--regenerated me, at no small expense, in his own blood.” 

Regis lifted his hand to Geralt’s arm, laying it on the leather above the metal bracers. “Do you know what that means to a vampire? The _ gravity _ of the endeavor?”

“Probably same thing it means to a human,” Geralt guessed. “You owe him your life.”

But Regis shook his head. “Much more than that. The act itself made us of _ one blood_\--a bond so strong humans _ cannot _ even imagine.” 

His eyes searched Geralt’s face--and Geralt felt a sick pang of jealousy go through him. He had no right to feel jealous, he knew that. He had made no claim of fidelity on Regis when they had been together and had offered no such gesture in return. Clearly Geralt had not held himself in exclusivity for Regis, given that he was here with Eskel, so why should Geralt feel so unhappy to learn Regis had something special with someone else? It was ridiculous. But Geralt could not stop himself. 

Perhaps Regis could read something of it in Geralt’s face, because Regis squeezed his arm reassuringly. “That bond is why I _ know _ something ill is afoot,” Regis finished in a gentle tone. “I can feel it.”

“You always had an overdeveloped sense of empathy,” Geralt sighed, withdrawing. It was exactly what had made him fall for Regis: his gentleness, forgiveness of others, and patience with mistakes. 

“Each vampire has a unique talent,” Regis went on, allowing Geralt's small retreat and focusing his attention on Eskel instead. “One they hone over centuries. It’s what has made us so difficult for Witchers to classify. A blood bond such as the one I have with Dettlaff would give me a sense of him no matter what, but Dettlaff’s particular skill only intensifies this. Again, your human words do not encapsulate this well, but what he has is...an extraordinary herd instinct. A _ family _ propensity, if you will. He can communicate with vampires in his vicinity beyond the realm of words. To be near him is to be engaged in a constant, silent communion with him. Our kind react to it at once, finding it either magnetic or repulsive.”

“So he’s a natural leader,” Eskel inferred. “Are you suggesting he’s...what, gathering vampires to him?”

“Oh yes,” Regis agreed. “But not just recently. You see, in the normal course of things Dettlaff prefers the company of so-called lesser vampires and shuns that of humans. He has lived in an ever-shifting group of them on the outskirts of human society for many decades, relocating ekkimara and katakans, bruxa and alps and even fleders, to be further away from human settlements. So for him to be in a _ city _ like this is bizarre, unnatural even.”

Eskel sneered, hands braced on his hips. Given how hard he was to irritate--he was, after all, Lambert’s confidant--this display of frustration worried Geralt even more. 

“So you’re telling us that a maladjusted loner with a herd of killer vampires is unhappy enough about something to come out of the woods and kill humans,” Eskel spat. “Great! So we have not _ just _ a higher vampire to contend with, which is bad enough, but his whole blood-sucking herd as well! Gods, they could flood the streets of Beauclair with corpses if they wanted to.”

Geralt winced at the bluntness of this. But he couldn’t blame Eskel for it; Geralt too had needed time to get over his natural distrust of vampires, and _he_ had only needed to cope with Regis. Meanwhile Eskel was now being dumped unprepared into dealing with some sort of vampire cabal.

Regis only heaved a sigh. Impervious, as usual, to other people’s shortcomings. 

“That is about the shape of it, yes. But it means that we share a common cause! I know you’ve a contract on the head of the ‘Beast of Beauclair’--yet your _ true _ task is to stop the Beast from killing, not necessarily to kill the Beast, am I right?”

“Yes,” Geralt agreed for them both. He started to say more, but then he heard hoofs beating on the ground in the distance. That number of them together, going that speed, indicated at least three riders going fast. Which probably meant guardsmen or knights. Someone must have seen Geralt and Eskel come in here.

Regis, with his even keener hearing, noticed it too. So with another quick bow to Eskel, instructions on where to find him, and an all-too-brief embrace for Geralt, Regis vanished into the night. 

Geralt’s chest hurt. He already wanted Regis back. He wanted to stare at Regis all day and drink in the familiar shapes of his aquiline nose and long, delicate fingers. But Geralt also wanted to get Eskel alone--to take him to their new house, their new home, and show him how delighted he felt about the prospect of an entire future at his side. 

Eskel dealt with the knights when they arrived. He told them (truthfully, in its own way) that the Beast had been too fast for them to follow and had escaped through one of the windows. Geralt made a show of looking at the ground and sniffing the air, as though he were tracking something--when in reality all he was doing was scenting the last traces of Regis in the air. 

The knights departed after a thankfully brief exchange. Which finally, _finally_ left Geralt and Eskel alone together. Geralt had tried to think of the words to say to express his delight at the idea of owning Corvo Bianco together, but Eskel rounded on Geralt at once.

“A higher vampire! _ Really?” _ he hissed, clearly furious. “You’ve stuck your cock in more than half the Sorceresses still alive and that wasn’t _ enough _ for you? You had to dip into something even _ more _ dangerous and stupid?”

“Regis isn’t dangerous,” Geralt protested, even though he knew that was untrue. The look of stunned disgust this earned him from Eskel was only fair. 

“What _else_ am I going to find out now I’ve finally gotten you, Wolf?” Eskel demanded. “Any other little things like this you need to tell me? Other extraordinarily powerful monsters you’ve slept with? You fucked any _ dragons _ too?”

Disclosing that Geralt had, in fact, fucked a dragon would not help this situation any. 

“I came here with you,” Geralt told him instead. “And if you want it, I’m going to _ stay _ here with you.”

He expected this to calm Eskel but it had the opposite effect. Eskel threw his hands up, looking even angrier than before. 

“Will I be _ enough _ for you?” he bit out. “Or is all this just a pretty lie you’re spinning that will fall apart the moment I lean on it?”

“No?” Geralt said. He didn’t know how else to answer. 

Eskel deflated. He turned away, running a hand through his hair. It needed a wash, especially since their swim in the river.

“Right, fine. What the hell are you even supposed to say to a question like that, really."

“I want to take you to our new home,” Geralt got out at last. He'd been waiting all day to say it. “It’s probably got spiders in all the rooms and dust on everything. I want to sleep in it with you anyway.”

First Eskel's head turned. His pupils were flared, wide to be able to see in the darkness, and reflecting in the dim light. For several seconds, he and Geralt just regarded one another.

Then Eskel smiled, moving forward. Geralt lifted his face up to kiss him when he got close enough. 

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "he's your [dot dot dot] 'friend'?" line isn't any less gay in the game when Geralt says it. Given how cishet the devs are, they probably meant it to be inquiring if Regis and Dettlaff are related. But we all know they're vampire-married.


	44. Barnabas-Basil

They rode to Corvo Bianco by moonlight. Geralt couldn’t help but think of it as romantic. Perhaps the culture of Toussaint was getting to him already. Maybe Eskel felt it too, though, because he didn’t make any jokes or offer to race. They rode with slow, careful enjoyment through the countryside. The smell of vineyards and olive groves came to them on the breeze everywhere. 

Even at their luxuriant pace they reached the grounds well before midnight. They found a small, open building that would serve as a stable for the horses. Side by side, they unsaddled and brushed down Roach and Skorpion before seeing them fed. 

There were a number of houses on the land, but there was one that was both the largest and located the highest on a small hill. That probably meant it was for the landowners.

When they reached the front door, however, they found a set of torches burning and a man seated peacefully out front smoking a pipe. Just when Geralt had the terrible thought that perhaps they had come to the wrong place, the man stood, bowing deeply to greet them. The torchlight gleamed on his carefully-shaven head. 

“Welcome home, sirs! I am Barnabas-Basil Foulty. By order of the Duchess, I shall serve you as majordomo of Corvo Bianco.”

The man went on to describe his references while Eskel and Geralt glanced at each other. Not just landowners now, but people who employed _servants?_ Geralt had anticipated needing to hire workers to help plant and maintain the vineyards and olive orchards, at least at first, but he had expected that Eskel and himself would be the ones cleaning the house and tending to the grounds. They had done it for years at Kaer Morhen. 

“Whoa, Barnabas-Basil,” Eskel said, stopping the recitation of the majordomo’s prior work experience. “One thing you oughta know: we’re not your typical landed gentlemen. Truth be told, this is the first real property we’ve ever owned.”

Geralt would have assumed that their lack of experience in this regard would be obvious; ‘vagabond’ was one of the kinder insults leveled at Witchers and they were famously itinerant. By torchlight their dual swords and unusual armor were still obvious even if their eyes were not. 

But at this, Barnabas-Basil only looked more delighted, drawing himself up to his full height with his chest puffed out. 

“Ohh, in that case, leave it all to me!” he began, and told them he would be honored to manage the aspects of the estate they had little experience with. When he finished, he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Normally I would give you a tour of the grounds, but it is late and you are doubtless tired. The tour must wait until morning, yes?”

Agreeing, they followed him indoors.

The house was, thankfully, not some sprawling mansion that would have embarrassed Geralt to live in. By the standards of landed gentlemen, it was extremely modest, containing a kitchen, a dining room, a sitting-room, a master bedroom, and an upstairs guest room currently filled with storage. But a bed was already set up there among the boxes and chests. 

Eskel let out a barely-audible sigh at the sight of it. 

Geralt realized then what he had to do. He stopped Barnabas-Basil as he related that the bedding and linens currently within the house were merely interim measures, clean and usable but also those left behind by the prior owner. 

“Look, by Witcher standards this is already the lap of luxury. But there’s something more important we have to discuss,” Geralt told the majordomo. Geralt glanced at Eskel, whose impassive features betrayed none what he might feel right now, and hoped this was what Eskel wanted. 

Barnabas-Basil looked at Geralt with the zealous interest of a man trained to wait upon the words of his employers. Geralt steeled himself, wondering if this evening would end with something ugly. 

“Eskel and I will share the master bedroom,” Geralt stated bluntly. “If that’s a problem for you, I’ll do my best to find you a similar position elsewhere. But we will not employ someone who will be offended by our--living arrangements,” he finished lamely, flustered and self-conscious. 

Eskel pressed his shoulder to Geralt’s, silently communicating either approval or support. But Barnabas-Basil only gave them a nod and a polite smile. 

“Of course, sirs.” He paused for a moment as though considering his words. “If we are discussing this directly, then perhaps I shall say that there is a reason that Her Grace went to the trouble of acquiring _ my _ services in particular.” He lifted his eyebrows at Eskel and Geralt, giving each of them a pointed look. “In addition to my expertise in the management of vineyards and household goods, she understood that I had certain _ other _ relevant experience.”

Geralt blinked. 

“Oh,” Eskel said, understanding the implication at once. “Is there, uh. Anyone _ you’d _ like to have living with you in your quarters?”

The smile that greeted this question seemed genuine. Barnabas-Basil gave them an abbreviated bow. 

“Thank you for the gracious offer, sir, but no. He is quite happy where he is, in the Duchess’s employ.”

The relief that welled up in Geralt left him almost dizzy. A home, an eventual income, and even a helper who understood what they were to each other? Geralt would have to figure out some appropriate thank-you message for the Duchess even beyond just dealing with the vampire problem she apparently had. She had really gone all-out.

After that Barnabas-Basil bid them goodnight and they retreated to their new bedroom. Eskel shoved Geralt up against the inside of the door and kissed him, biting at his mouth and breathing hard against his cheek. 

“You _told_ him,” he murmured when he finally withdrew. 

“You don’t like being kept secret,” Geralt panted against his cheek. Eskel’s wide, firm thigh between his legs wasn’t helping him think clearly. 

“I meant from your friends and other lovers, not...”

“He needed to know?” Geralt asked, confused now. “It would have been impossible keeping it a secret from him.”

Eskel had him stripped and face-down on the bed in record time. Shortly after, toes curling and clutching at the pillows, Geralt christened their sheets. Which was one reason the majordomo had to be told: nobody looking at their bedding would have any doubt what they did in it. 

When they eventually got to sleep, they had to curl together on the other side of the bed to avoid the extensive series of wet spots.


	45. Slow Morning

Geralt awoke to a hand stroking over his belly. He knew instinctively that it was Eskel, because if anyone else had tried to touch him in his sleep, they’d be dead. 

Geralt also awoke hard. 

Their morning breath was too bad for kissing, and everything south of the navel was still too dirty from last night to be touched with a mouth either. So they settled for stroking off together, warm and lazy and affectionate. 

After that, still lying side by side (Geralt found himself unwilling to rise, too delighted with the idea of this being a bed they owned in a house they owned) Eskel finally pushed himself up on one elbow. 

“You gonna tell me about Regis?  _ Actually _ tell me about him, not just this ‘lover who died’ bullshit where you left out every important thing about him.”

Geralt sighed. “What do you want to know?”

The unimpressed look this earned him seemed unfair after such nice orgasms. 

“He’s a fuckin’  _ higher vampire, _ Wolf. Which you clearly knew about before last night. So how does a Witcher wind up in bed with a higher vampire?”

Geralt shrugged, knowing he was avoiding Eskel’s eyes and doing it anyway. 

“Same way as you wind up in bed with anyone else, really.” Eskel smacked him right on the nipple and Geralt winced. “Fine! He’s...charming. Good at stitching up wounds. Give him the opportunity to talk, especially if you ask him to explain something, and he’ll go for hours. He didn’t _have_ to help me look for Ciri but he did. He saved Yennefer’s life. And then he died fighting for us.”

“Clearly it didn’t stick.”

Geralt glared at him. But he went on anyway, because he loved Eskel and Eskel deserved to know this if he was going to be working side by side with the man. 

“We knew each other for months, traveled side by side. I found out he was a vampire because he wanted to protect a young woman who was being victimized. Before then, I thought Regis was interesting and tried several times to initiate something with him, but he always pretended not to notice.” Geralt snorted. “He noticed all right, he just didn’t want me seeing him in what he called ‘a delicate state.’ His control over his human form is very good, but he didn’t want to tempt fate by fucking a Witcher who didn’t know what he really was.”

Eskel snorted. 

“So he revealed himself to be a vampire. Then what?”

“I threatened to kill him,” Geralt said, still a little embarrassed at this. “Told him to leave our group, and it _seemed_ like he had--until Dandelion was wounded and it turned out Regis had been following us. Regis was so determined to help Dandelion that he did it even while I had a sword to his throat. _Kept_ coming back to change the bandages, too, even though I’d made it clear I wanted nothing to do with him. After that, he just...stuck around until I started talking to him. I asked him about higher vampires and he was happy to tell me.”

Eskel looked startled, eyebrows lifting. “Any of the information good?”

“Far as I can tell, yeah. Not like I’ve had much exposure to higher vampires to check it.”

“Might soon,” Eskel grumbled, toppling down onto his back again. “Dammit all.”

But Geralt laid the back of his hand on Eskel’s chest and stroked him from his shoulder to his belly. The scars bumped against his knuckles. 

“I trust Regis,” he said. “If Regis says that he knows Dettlaff well, and because of that he knows Dettlaff is doing this for a reason, I believe him. So if we find out the reason, we can probably get through this without violence. He didn’t seem to want to attack us.” 

Grumbling, Eskel turned over, wrapping his arm around Geralt’s belly and nuzzling into his neck. Geralt kissed at his forehead and nose. 

“So you fucked Regis,” Eskel sighed. But he just sounded resigned now, not anxious or angry. 

“Yeah,” Geralt said, with another kiss to Eskel’s forehead. He thought carefully over his next words, unsure if he should say them--but that seemed almost guaranteed to haunt him later. So he just said it: “Fell for him pretty fast after that, too.”

Eskel nodded into Geralt’s shoulder. 

“What’s it like? Fucking a higher vampire, I mean.”

At that Geralt grinned. “Fun. He’s a little guy, but he could pick me up and move me around however he wanted. If he grabbed my wrists, there was no amount of struggling I could do to escape. Doesn’t need to breathe, really, so holding his breath isn’t a problem. And no gag reflex at all.”

A long, thoughtful silence followed this. 

“Combine that with a personality that isn’t complete shit and I can see why you fell for him. Huh.”

This admission was more than Geralt had expected from Eskel this quickly, so he rewarded it with more kisses to Eskel's scars. 

But then another thought occurred to Geralt. His inclination was to ignore it, do what he wanted, and deal with the consequences later--but that attitude had gotten them to a point where Eskel no longer believed he could expect anything from Geralt. So Geralt sighed, bracing himself. 

“Look. I...I love Regis. If he’s still alive, I still want to be with him. But that is  _ not _ a threat to what I have with you. If Regis leaves Toussaint after all this is over, I’ll let him go and stay here. I’ll just...ask Regis to come visit sometimes. Or--or I’ll find a place to meet him in the capitol for Ciri’s coronation or wedding or something.”

Geralt waited for Eskel to process this. Finally Eskel let out a deep breath. 

“Fine. That’s all I ask.”   
  
They got up soon after, not bothering with more than underwear, and that only because Barnabas-Basil might show up at some point and it wouldn’t do to upset such excellent hired help. Which was good, because he did indeed knock shortly after, and agreed to help them find both breakfast and a bath. 

Once they were washed and properly dressed and sitting down to breakfast, Barnabas-Basil also delivered a letter which had come with a messenger that morning. The idea that they had a known address to which mail could be delivered, rather than just posting something on a board for them and hoping one of them found it, sent a shiver of both pleasure and anxiety down Geralt’s spine.

The rich quality of the paper, combined with the very familiar seal upon it, prepared Geralt for the flood of scent that poured out as soon as he opened it: lilac and gooseberries. 

Eskel sniffed and then looked over. “Yennefer writing to you?”

Geralt read the letter, eyes widening as he did so. Most of it relayed information she’d found on a local natural philosopher who’d experimented with Witcher mutations, which was helpful and thoughtful of her to send to him. But at the end of the letter was a paragraph that caught Geralt completely off-guard. 

_ Since our mutual acquaintances include many with no sense of discretion whatsoever, and since I am keenly aware of how hurtful it is to discover your lover (whether present or past) has taken up with someone else without thinking of you, this is your formal notice from me: I have begun a new relationship with someone else. You undoubtedly remember the oneiromancer, Corinne Tilly, whose services you utilized to locate Ciri. I sought her out for matters of my own. I trust your imagination can furnish whatever further details are relevant to you about how our relationship has bloomed. I shall not subject you to them myself. _

“Yennefer found someone else,” Geralt said breathlessly. 

At that, Eskel looked over, eyes narrowing. He waited for further response from Geralt. 

_“And?”_ he said at last. 

Geralt set the letter on the dining table. He stared at it. “It’s stupid to feel upset, but...”

Eskel snorted. “But you do anyway. Welcome to being me, Wolf.”

Geralt’s mouth pinched. “I suppose. I’ve given you a lot more right to worry than Yennefer has given me, though. Even now we’re separated.” He lifted the perfumed letter again. “I’ll have to figure out what to say to her, write her back.”

Eskel laughed. “Better you than me. It’ll have to go something like ‘Dear Yennefer: I plowed a higher vampire and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass’--”

“Fuck you!” Geralt shouted, and flung a spoon at him. 

Eskel just laughed and ducked out of the way. The wood spoon thunked against the wall before clattering dramatically to the floor. 

Within a minute, not a single utensil remained on the table, all of them used as missiles in their little war. By the time Barnabas-Basil returned to clear up after the meal, he found every scrap of food consumed, a startling array of knives and spoons scattered through the hall, and the door to the bedroom closed again. Judging by the noises coming from behind it, he estimated they would need a new bed sooner rather than later, and resolved to bring the matter to their attention as soon as an opportunity presented itself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I just wanna write them being happy and having fun with each other before all the Plot Drama happens


	46. Regis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to see the canonical version of these scenes, you can watch them [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwd_UCgBe-s). The game includes a lot more information about Geralt and Regis here, and some very overt flirtation--but also some of what I consider to be bad mischaracterization of Regis. Regis is weirdly dismissive and belittling of human life and feelings in this scene even though that goes against everything else presented about him in both the games and the books. He also states that being able to infer someone's real intentions from implications and indirect communication is a "mark of intelligence." This is both ableist and weirdly insulting to Dettlaff, whom Regis has explicitly said cannot understand things like that? I'm not sure what the devs were going for with all that but I don't like it. So I'm retconning it!

Geralt went alone to visit Regis. Eskel said he did not wish to be present for whatever reunion Geralt would have with him. 

Which turned out to be good, because Geralt knew for a fact that Eskel would be unable to contain his mockery if he discovered that the directions Regis had given them led to a cemetery. Truth be told, Geralt judged _himself_ a little for being in love with a vampire so self-referential and stereotypical that he was living in an actual crypt. It had the benefit of being rent-free and unbothered by unwanted visitors, but still. The fact that the graveyard was very pretty with the sun dappling the grassy graves was also beside the point. 

Geralt found his way down into the crypt, weaving through cramped passageways much more suited to a small, slender vampire than a tall, broad-shouldered Witcher. But then close quarters opened out into a larger room and Geralt couldn’t help but smile. The cool, quiet space was lit warmly with lamps and candles. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling, masking the smell of damp and bones with their mingled aromas. Regis had set up a bed for himself, too, a small stuffed mattress laid onto the stone floor and heaped with blankets and soft things. A collection of books and papers lay scattered atop one of the sarcophagi. 

Just as Geralt was wondering if it would be too presumptuous to wait on Regis’s bed, the vampire himself misted into view. He greeted Geralt with a warm smile. It sent a heady thrill through Geralt, heart pounding fast under his clothing. 

“It is good to see you. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Wasn’t sure I’d--what the hell,” Geralt frowned, crossing the room to Regis to wrap him up in another embrace. When he pulled back, he stared hard into Regis’s face. “Why wouldn’t you think I’d come?”

Regis shrugged, black eyes unassuming and soft as he looked back at Geralt. “Many reasons. For starters that you’re hunting Dettlaff, who is making the worst possible first impression upon you, and whom you now know to be dear to me. Many would respond to that with a lack of trust.”

“Well I’m not them,” Geralt said firmly. “Anyway, like you said, we share a goal: to stop him from killing anyone else. Makes more sense for us to work together, right?”

With a nod, Regis withdrew, gesturing them over to a side room--which, Geralt then saw, was full of even more books, not to mention a table and chairs. Regis really had made this place a home. 

“Neither of our good intentions may count for much. If Dettlaff does not wish to be found, you will not find him. Ever. I have been calling upon our bond over and over again, but he is...hmm. How to explain it.” Regis stroked at his chin as he seated himself. “Because of what he did to regenerate me, I am a part of him now, and he is a part of me. A human may say that she loses herself in her misery, loses sight of the parts of herself she loves. But for us, it is rather more literal. If he is avoiding me, it is because he feels forced to cut off the better parts of himself to do this horrible thing he’s doing.”

At that wording, Geralt blinked, then pulled the severed hand out of his hip satchel.

Regis’s eyes went wide and horrified as soon as he saw it. A muscle jumped around his eye. 

“He’s also _literally_ lost some parts along the way,” Geralt said, holding out the hand. “Maybe this can help us find him somehow?”

Regis accepted the hand and it twitched violently as soon as he touched it, fingers spreading. Regis’s own fingers slipped neatly between them. Watching this gory imitation of an intimate gesture made Geralt uncomfortable, but Regis raised the limb to his face, scenting the palm and the bloody stump. He bared his teeth, gaze growing distant and closed. 

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said, now feeling guilty. “I should have warned you before just bringing that out.”

“No, this is--it’s Dettlaff’s hand, without a doubt. I know the smell of his blood. And even without that...” A ring adorned the smallest finger of the hand and Regis pulled it free. He held it up to the light. 

Geralt had noted it when he’d taken the hand. It was made of no metal he’d ever seen before, the sheen of it unfamiliar, and depicted twining, serpentine shapes. 

“This ring was originally mine,” Regis admitted in a low voice. “It comes from our home, where we lived before the Conjunction of the Spheres. I received this from a dear friend--and I gave it to another. Hopefully someday I will be able to return it to him, and his loss of it does not herald as permanent a parting between us as between him and this part of himself.” 

Regis seemed to master himself then, straightening and sliding the ring onto his own finger. Then he launched into an explanation of how the hand could be used to brew some sort of alchemical empathy potion that would allow the drinker to experience Dettlaff’s memories and feelings as their own. 

“So which of us would drink it?” Geralt asked. He didn’t like the idea of it. While he didn’t mind meeting and getting to know his partners’ other partners, he didn’t want to do it like _ this. _

“Oh, neither of us,” Regis said as if this were obvious. “It would be Eskel.”

_ “Eskel?” _ Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “Why?” he demanded. 

“I cannot tell you that. I simply ask that you trust me when I say that Eskel will be the best person to do it. I cannot drink the potion, as it is formulated for human consumption and even using it upon a Witcher is risk enough. But between the two of you, Eskel will almost undoubtedly get better results.”

“Is this to do with whatever you smelled on him?” Geralt asked, mind racing over what this could possibly mean. 

“Yes. But all this presumes that we can even brew this potion, which may also be impossible.”

The ingredients needed were, to say the least, difficult to locate. Some Regis thought he could research replacements for. But a few were irreplaceable and very rare. 

So they went up into the graveyard where Regis called upon a raven, telling it what they needed. Waiting for it to return with information meant time alone with Regis in which they had nothing else to do--which was exactly what Geralt wanted. Except he didn’t dare to do more until he understood the situation better. 

“Why didn’t you think I’d come find you?” Geralt asked again. 

Leaned up against a gravestone in the sun-warmed grass altogether too far away from where Geralt had settled himself against a tree, Regis sent him an unreadable look. 

“Oh come now, Geralt, give it some thought. I think you can tell me.”

“Is this because of Eskel?” he ventured. “Me being with both Dandelion _ and _ Yennefer didn’t stop me from gravitating toward you. Why would it stop me this time?”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t. Perhaps it would. It would not befit a gentleman to presume upon your attentions.”

“Why didn’t you find _ me?” _ Geralt shot back. “Surely you knew I’d at least want to hear you were alive. I thought you were _ dead, _ Regis.”

At that Regis snorted. “The same could be said of you, my dear. But I did think of you--often. _ Very _ often, over the last seven years. I had to regrow my entire body! That meant years in which I first could not move, then could not walk, and had little with which to occupy myself but memories and fantasies. Some of them were, of course, of you.”

“Dettlaff didn’t take care of you?” Geralt asked, ready to be angry on Regis’s behalf. 

But Regis shook his head. “Oh, he did. He poured his blood into me week after week for six of those years. He was incredibly patient and generous--he read to me, talked to me, stayed by my side as often as possible. But he had other things to do, others who called upon his attention.”

“So you couldn’t have gotten a message to me or something?”

Regis gave him a long-suffering look. “You’re a Witcher, my dear. You never told me where you spend your winters, and you are otherwise always on the move, so it wasn’t as though I could send you letters. And it was less than a year ago that I regained my own full mobility. I had settled on the idea of looking for you soon--but then Dettlaff disappeared six months ago. He did not tell me where he was going or why. He simply vanished, leaving me and all the rest of his pack in a state of uncertainty and fear. I trust I don’t have to tell a Witcher how unpleasant a group of anxious katakan pups can be, not to mention adult fleders, garkain, and ekkimara. It took time for me to get the pups settled with a triad of alps and bruxa, and they only took them with great reluctance. Most of them wanted to search for Dettlaff at my side.”

Geralt winced. Geralt hadn’t realized that Dettlaff’s group of vampires would include children and young ones--but of course it would. 

“Walked out on his whole family, huh,” Geralt murmured to himself. 

“Yes,” Regis responded. “A family he has built up over two centuries. So you understand why I find his current behavior suspicious and out of character.”

No wonder Regis hadn’t been able to just pick up and chase after Geralt, too.

“Well, at least we both wound up here together,” Geralt said at last. “Are you--” He started to ask if Regis was unwell, and then rethought his phrasing. Yen had never liked him pointing out her less beautified moments. “Dettlaff said you were supposed to stay where you were and regenerate. Does that mean you’re not, uh, done yet?”

This got another smile from Regis. “You make me sound like a loaf cooking in the oven. But no, my dear, I am not ‘done yet.’ I would not look this old if I were.”

Geralt snorted. “You didn’t look young even when I met you. I figured you just chose to look that way, to attract less attention.”

“Well yes,” Regis admitted, still smiling. “There is that. I have never desired for my human form to be anything dramatic. But even so, I like to flatter myself that my chosen visage didn’t look _ quite _ this haggard before.”

In the past Geralt would have left it at that. But now Geralt was used to hearing unsaid doubts in Eskel’s words. This sounded similar.

“I still like your looks,” Geralt admitted. Then, even worse to confess, “Losing you was terrible.”

Regis looked up into the branches of the old oak above them. “The same could be said of you. Some of the bruxa brought me stories of your death. Then confusing rumors about a Witcher with white hair that I didn’t dare hope was you. Then stories that the Emperor of Nilfgaard himself had hired a Witcher to find his daughter--and then there was talk of you everywhere, but I could not leave Beauclair. Dettlaff may not want me here, but I cannot make myself leave while I know he’s suffering.”

Geralt nodded. He’d have done the same in Regis’s shoes. 

Geralt didn't know what to say then. So instead he got up, crossed over to Regis, and when Regis made no sign of protest, seated himself in the smaller man’s lap. 

His lips were cool to the touch when Geralt moved their mouths together. Geralt always forgot that until he kissed Regis again, and he’d forgotten it again now. For all Regis might choose to _look_ human, he was not. 

His tongue was cool too, sweeping up against the sensitive inside of Geralt’s upper lip, teasing into the corners. 

From this close, the skin-smell of him was so much stronger that Geralt felt dizzy with it. That proof that this was Regis, that he was alive, moving and real underneath Geralt--

Geralt pulled away. When Regis gave him a questioning look, Geralt gave him a smile that made promises in return. Then he lifted Regis’s hand and pulled the glove off. 

He saw the moment Regis understood Geralt’s intention, saw the way his skin flushed and felt Regis’s legs shift underneath him. 

Geralt held the bare hand with reverence and anticipation. Once, Regis had confessed that he found the baring of his hands far more provocative and vulnerable than the baring of his genitals. It wasn't till later that Geralt had discovered why.

Geralt pressed the bare knuckles to his lips. If this had been a courtly occasion and Regis had been a human woman, it might have been gallant and romantic. But as they were, Regis squirmed, eyes huge and staring at Geralt’s mouth, so close to where he wanted it. 

A peck upon each knuckle, and then Geralt left only the barest space as he breathed his body-warm air over and between Regis’s fingers. The vampire whined under him, clutching at Geralt’s thigh with his free hand. Already Geralt could feel the hard shape of Regis’s erection pressing into his backside. 

Geralt kept up the tease till Regis at last let out a deep, rumbling growl, the kind of inhuman sound he tried so hard to suppress. He could _fuck_ Geralt without ever once letting his mask slip. He could easily leave Geralt breathless and dripping down his thighs and so spent that even a Witcher lay exhausted and sore. But _this_\--this would strip away Regis's thick armor. 

“I cannot decide if teaching you this was the best thing I have ever done for myself, or if I have created a monster with far too much power,” Regis said, voice trembling. 

“If you’re still talking, I haven’t done enough,” Geralt said, and drew one finger into his mouth, exploring the strongly-herbal underside of the nail and the faint whorls of the print. He suckled the tip till he felt claws digging into his thigh. Then he finally, finally went right for the prize. 

When the tip of his tongue touched the thin folds of skin at the junction between Regis’s fingers, slipping between the digits and pressing hot against the bones, Regis’s eyes went dark. In a human that would have meant the simple dilation of the pupils, but in Regis it meant the black of his irises spreading out onto his sclera, leaving his gaze glittering and inhuman and fixed completely on Geralt. 

Perhaps a Witcher ought not feel so hungry for the display of his lover's monstrousness. Perhaps Geralt ought to have been relieved that Regis was so proficient at maintaining his human façade. But in truth Geralt loved and sought out ways to make Regis slip and reveal himself.

Regis had never directly acknowledged that he wanted it too. But once Geralt and Dandelion and the others had discovered Regis’s true nature, Regis had been so, so eager to tell them his stories, even his terrible history of violence and addiction. It had been as though he had been desperately waiting for an opportunity to do so. An opportunity to be truly known and welcomed. 

Regis loved the company of humans, loved and treasured what he called their 'brief, bright lives.' But humans only ever loved the _ pretense _ of him, the mask that kept them both complacent and far, far away from ever truly knowing or understanding Regis. And while Regis could have secluded himself away from humanity as some vampires apparently did, that was not his way. He had not been content with just giving up human blood and instead pushed himself further in his recovery: he had learned to _ love _ humans even despite the craving Geralt knew he still had to feel.

Of all the professions Regis could have chosen to occupy himself in human settlements, he had chosen to become a surgeon. The willpower it took to be exposed so intimately to the source of his cravings, to smell and touch blood without once giving in to temptation, was something Geralt knew he could hardly understand.

All he knew was that centuries of living among humans had left a side-effect in Regis: that nothing affected him like stripping the pretense away and revealing himself as he was. And no touch could achieve that as well as this one. 

After believing Regis had been burned out of the world forever, Geralt found he needed proof that this wasn’t just some human masquerading. 

He lapped at the silky folds, softer and thinner than that of a human, drawing his tongue over the top of one finger before pushing into the space between the next. Underneath him Regis went slowly wild. 

Regis had described it once as ‘vestigial patagium.’ His human form lacked the membraneous wings his full-moon form had, but his body remembered the ability to be shaped that way, remembered all those nerves spread over a vastly broader expanse of skin. It meant that vampires in this form were exquisitely sensitive between their fingers and along their wrists and the sides of their arms. 

Geralt drew tiny circles into the webbing between pinky and ring finger and watched as Regis’s teeth and ears lengthened. Grey spots bloomed along his hairline, his brow ridges bulging, and the edges of his nostrils lifted and flattened. 

When at last the face Geralt was looking at could no longer be seen as human by any stretch of the imagination, he leaned forward to kiss Regis again. Regis tried to turn away, to keep his razor teeth away from Geralt. But Geralt followed after him, pressing their mouths together and drawing his tongue down the front of one incisor until he was rewarded with another deep, full-chested rumble of pleasure. 

Smiling again, holding that dark inhuman gaze, Geralt pulled off Regis’s other glove. 

_I see you,_ he told Regis silently. _I know what you are. I love you this way. _

Ten minutes later Regis couldn't take anymore and Geralt found himself flat on his back in the grass with his breeches yanked open. Regis wedged the warm, slick shaft of Geralt's cock between his fingers, rubbing them both off that way, and shifted his mouth just enough not to tear Geralt to shreds as he swallowed the head. 

The way Regis purred when Geralt came in his mouth was just as good as the climax itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the idea of "vestigial patagium"/hand sensitivity in vampires goes completely to [a_sparrows_fall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall/pseuds/a_sparrows_fall) in their fantastic fic, [All That's Mine I Carry With Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224247/chapters/27768684). I did not come up with that idea, I'm just borrowing it because I love it so much! If you enjoy well-written Geralt/Regis (or well-written Geralt/Yen!) go check out that fic! I also borrowed the idea that vampires are capable of purring and other inhuman sounds from [this delightful series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1066484) by [softestpunk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/softestpunk).


	47. The Final Ingredient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: this chapter and the next one deals with a canonical event in which a character recovering from addiction intentionally forces himself into relapse. Further, it also mentions past occurrences of both slavery and mass murder. Please mind your own needs in skipping this portion of the story if that is likely to upset or trigger you.
> 
> On a lighter note, this is where the heavy duty retconning begins. The changes will escalate after the Tesham Mutna sections, because while I love the Blood & Wine DLC's characters and setting, I very much dislike what the devs did with them and how they railroaded and escalated the conflicts for the sake of boss battles. 
> 
> For those familiar with the game, the most obvious retcon in this chapter is about the Unseen Elder. The Locate This Vampire function the Unseen Elder has in the game is a big ole deus ex machina that breaks what I'm trying to do with my take on the DLC, so I'm just removing that as an option from this fic. Also, if I included the Elder, I'd want to make them nicer and better and then I'd end up writing a fix-it fic about the entirety of vampire society, which sounds lovely but is not what I'm going for right now. So, the Unseen Elder will remain true to their title and be unseen in this fic.

Once they were both fully clothed again, Regis brought out a bottle of his mandrake cordial and they spread out side by side in the warm grass. They drank it and talked, meandering over their years apart and what death had been like for each of them. Regis asked about Eskel and Yennefer and Dandelion, seeming delighted that Dandelion had at last met his match and that Geralt was settling down with Eskel. And when Geralt in turn inquired further into Dettlaff, Regis was all too happy to talk. 

“He is the most pleasing form of contradiction,” Regis sighed, wistful and forlorn. “Innocent in ways I can barely believe of a creature nearing the end of his fourth century. Yet also incredibly powerful--his draw even upon me startled and fascinated me from the first time we met. It is a rare talent among our kind. Someday he will be one of the great Elders of our species.”

“So,  _ are _ you two lovers?” Geralt inquired, curious. “Eskel tried to ask but you didn’t really answer.”

“You mean, are we lovers as you and I are?” Regis clarified. 

“Yeah.”

Regis gave him a wry smile. “You might think that would be a simple answer, but it is not,” Regis began. “It is very strange trying to make love to someone whose mind and emotions you can feel as your own. Not least because keeping track of all the limbs requires great concentration.”

“So you can read each other’s minds,” Geralt said with a shudder. There had been times with Yen when she had asked first. He had formed loving fantasies for her of beautiful places he had seen, memories of Ciri, experiences he wished she had been there with him to share. But then there had been all the other times when she had read his mind  _ without _ asking. The idea was sullied for him now, clouded with too much anger and hurt. 

“No, it is not like the sort of telepathy of which human magicians are capable. I cannot read Dettlaff’s thoughts or know his memories. I cannot even see out of his eyes--sight is too cerebral a sense, perhaps. I can instead  _ feel _ him and his body like a part of my own self.” Regis waved his hand at the landscape. “Our connection is the only reason I knew to come here, to Beauclair--I opened myself to his experience and received the faintest of echoes of the things he tasted and smelled. At great distances the effect is weak, so I had to do it over and over again before finally I identified the scents as Toussaint. By the time I arrived, however, Dettlaff noticed me doing it and closed himself to me, cutting me off.” Sighing unhappily, Regis shuffled himself closer to Geralt’s side. “When we are close, when we are both willing and open to it, it can be as though we are of one body.”

Geralt had no idea how to feel about this. “Did you  _ want _ that?”

Regis took a long swig of the bottle. Then he turned knowing eyes on Geralt. 

“You are asking if I was able to consent to this, given the state in which Dettlaff found me and created our blood bond?”

Geralt nodded. Now he was thinking about it, he found he could not abide the idea that Regis might hate that connection and experience it as a violation.  But Regis only leaned close to press a kiss to the corner of Geralt’s eye. 

“Be comforted, then. If nothing else, it would be a worthwhile price for being alive again. Perhaps before I died I would not have said that I would desire this. But I find that now I have it, I love it and him more than I could ever have imagined.” His smile was bittersweet. “He is a good man, Geralt, no matter how his present actions make him appear.”

A thought occurred to Geralt then. “If you two are...are _part_ of each other in that way, it’s not like being loved by someone else, is it.”

“No,” Regis said. “You have the heart of it: it is like loving  _ yourself _ very passionately.”

Geralt snorted. “Not very exciting, then.”

But Regis fixed Geralt with a hard look. “Do you truly think it so dull? Tell me, have you ever looked at yourself and thought, how _wondrous,_ how beautiful, how  _ divine? _ Even in my pain, even in being unable to move beyond the bed where I lay for so long in my recovery, because I was joined to him, I thought: what a magnificent creature I am, and what a gift it is to be alive.”

Shifting uneasily now, Geralt tried to picture that. He couldn’t. His own body was utilitarian--it fought well, it fucked easily, it did as he asked. He hated it when it hurt and enjoyed it when it supplied him with pleasure. The idea of  _ loving _ it in the way Regis described was as alien a concept as falling in love with his own sword. 

“I like myself just fine,” Geralt said, and heard the slight petulance in his tone. 

“And I am glad you do. But there is a difference between liking oneself well enough and being passionately  _ in love _ with oneself, complexity and all.  _ That _ is what we give each other when Dettlaff and I are content and side by side. We love who we each are together. So for him to cut me off…”

“He hates himself,” Geralt breathed. “Really, really hates himself.”

“Exactly. I felt traces of this during my years at his side. It is impossible to live as long as we do without accumulating hosts of painful memories and reasons to feel shame. But the feelings came and went as healthy feelings do, fleeting as the weather. Nothing like _this,_ the horror and disgust he feels for himself now. And those in his pack who have known him longer say he has never disappeared before. He has traveled often, seeking out isolated members of our kind, but he always said where he was going and allowed himself to be found.”

Geralt imagined Eskel disappearing from their home without a word and shuddered. Taking the bottle from Regis, Geralt swallowed several great gulps to distract himself. 

By the time the sun had set, even Regis had talked himself into silence. Geralt fell into slumber at Regis’s side. When the raven returned, Geralt awoke, blinking at the small shadowy shape standing below the oak tree. 

“Ever vigilant, even in his sleep,” Regis smiled. “Quite vampire-like in fact! Are you absolutely certain they don’t administer a few of our genes during the Trial of the Grasses?”

“Suppose it’s possible. The recipe for the Wolf School was lost so we can’t know. But I appreciate the compliment.”

Even better, the raven had brought good news: it had discovered a possible source for one of the ingredients they needed. As the site seemed likely to be cursed, and curses were a staple of Witcher’s work, Regis agreed to let Geralt and Eskel handle it. 

The next day, they went together to do just that. There was indeed a curse, and they found a way to break it. That it left them both dry-heaving the rest of the afternoon was, all things considered, relatively minor. They had both endured much worse in the course of their work. 

Eskel was much more nonplussed, however, to find that he would be the one drinking a decoction containing the saliva of a spotted wight, flesh from a higher vampire’s severed hand, and gods knew what other vile ingredients. 

“Witcher potions are a kick in the liver too, but at least I know exactly what those will do to me,” Eskel griped as they rode to Regis’s cemetery. “If I’d known this contract would involve me reexperiencing a higher vampire’s moral breakdown--”

“Think of it as the cost of our beautiful house and vineyard,” Geralt interrupted, mostly because he too felt uncomfortable about Eskel having to be the one to take the potion. “Unless you know of another way to find a higher vampire who doesn’t wish to be found?”

Eskel didn't, of course, so Geralt changed the subject, distracting them both until they arrived at the graveyard. At which point the mockery started in earnest. 

“A crypt. Wolf, he lives in a  _ crypt.” _

“It’s nicely furnished,” Geralt muttered, despite knowing this would only make it worse. 

“Ohh, a vampire living in a  _ nicely furnished _ crypt! That makes all the difference then! Did he fuck you over a pretty sarcophagus? Or  _ in _ one? I’m amazed you don’t have angry spirits haunting your asshole for the offense. You don’t, do you? I’m not gonna wind up cursed next time I stick it in you, am I?”

Geralt said nothing to this. Regis could defend his own ridiculous choices if he wanted to. 

They found the man himself seated at his table and reading a thick tome in leather binding. He looked unhappy with what he was reading, brows pinched and the lines around his eyes deeper than ever. 

He looked up at them as they entered, but the sight of them seemed to give him no pleasure whatsoever. 

“We have the spotted wight saliva,” Geralt declared, hoping this might cheer up the vampire. 

It didn’t. Instead Regis shut his eyes, running a hand through his hair. 

“We  _ can _ make this potion, can’t we?” Geralt asked. 

“Yes,” Regis replied, sounding not at all pleased with this statement. “But the final ingredient is...troublesome to obtain. You see, to use the concoction to summon the memories of one, the solution must contain the blood of another specimen of the same species.”

Eskel glanced at Geralt, scowling in confusion. He leaned against the wall nearby to Regis. 

“Isn’t that the easiest part? We’ve got you right here, and you’re clearly willing to help.”

Regis cast an unhappy look up at Eskel. “My willingness is not the issue. You see, the blood must be from a specimen not only of the same species, but one in a similar physical and emotional state.”

“Oh no,” Geralt breathed, realizing at once what this meant. 

“Yes, I think you begin to understand the problem. For while I do not know exactly what Dettlaff is thinking, I know this: he is in a state of overwhelming self-loathing. He detests himself. He is denying himself everything good in his life, punishing himself with isolation, and engaging in violence. I shall need to induce in myself the same state.”

Several seconds of silence stretched out between the three of them. Geralt seated himself in the other chair, moving it to be closer to Regis’s side. 

“At the risk of being insensitive, Regis, you have plenty to feel self-loathing about,” Geralt said, hoping Eskel would not enquire about specifics. Eskel didn’t need to know the full extent of Regis’s history. “Doesn’t this just mean you need to...I don’t know, meditate on past mistakes or something? Unpleasant, I’ll grant you, but--”

“That will not be enough,” Regis said. “I think of my mistakes frequently without doing what Dettlaff has done. No,” he went on a louder voice, “we need to do something dramatic to me to obtain an appropriate sample. I tried very earnestly to identify a replacement, but alas, none such exists.”

“And that ‘something dramatic’ is?” Eskel demanded.

“I’ve thought it through very carefully. We shall visit Tesham Mutna, an ancient vampire estate. There we shall find a cage designed to contain a higher vampire. I will enter it, be confined. Then you will dose me with  _ sangurium, _ a chemical that sharpens one’s sense of smell. Once it has taken effect, one drop of blood shall smell like a gallon to me--and then you will feed me blood.”

At this Geralt stood, glaring at Regis in disbelief. “You  _ crazy? _ You’re a recovering addict!”

One corner of Regis’s mouth crooked and he glanced up at Eskel, perhaps waiting to see if the second Witcher would have a reaction to this revelation. Eskel said nothing, watching with narrowed eyes. 

“Your outrage warms my heart, Geralt, but I do not see another choice. If you cannot bear to do this, perhaps Eskel will. I assume he will see the necessity of it and have less concern over my finer feelings.”

“Will you be dangerous in that state?” Eskel asked, cutting past Regis’s needs to his own. “Will you attack me?”

“I will want to,” Regis admitted. “For me, blood addiction is a vicious cycle. While I am sober, I remember how terrible it was and all the disgusting things I did under the influence. But once I have begun to drink, all I can think of is how deliciously powerful I feel and thus where I will acquire another quantity of blood. And Witcher blood is a delicacy which I have never had the pleasure to imbibe. It will be especially tempting.”

“Hence the vampire cage,” Eskel nodded. “Right. So, once you’re in the cage and dosed, then what? Will just smelling me nearby be enough?”

Regis shook his head and Geralt’s eyes went wide. How much worse could it get? 

“You will need to lure beasts there, beasts which you will then kill. The bloodletting must be profuse, abundant enough that the blood’s scent will drive me mad, wild. In my already-compromised state, I will begin to think...horrible things. Vile things. You must leave me in the cage until I become sober again, start to remember myself, return to my faculties enough to be disgusted--and  _ then _ you must take my blood.”

“Fine,” Geralt growled, because it was clear Regis had thought this through. “If we have  _ no _ other choice, then we will do this. But what about afterward? What happens when it's over and you’re miserable and sick of it all?”

Regis traced a circle on the table with one long fingernail. “Realistically I should be alone for a time. To make sure I am safe.”

“No,” Geralt refused, slapping his hand on the table. “No, that is what Dettlaff has done, and we’ve seen how well that’s worked. You’ll come to Corvo Bianco with us afterward.”

“Geralt--” Eskel started, but Geralt rounded on him. 

“He’s my lover and he’s helping us with the contract that got us our home!” Geralt hissed, furious. “You would seriously turn him away?”

But Eskel rolled his eyes. “Not what I was gonna say, Wolf. I was gonna propose we find some way to bring the cage back with us, in case we need it.” He met Regis’s eyes. “You’ll feel safer with us if you know you can’t hurt us, right?”

The circle Regis was making with his fingernail became some complex sigil, lines and curves Geralt didn’t care to follow. 

“Yes. Yes I will.”

“Fine. So we need to find a cart, and a cloth or something to cover the cage for when we bring it back on the roads. We don’t want people seeing this and asking questions.” Standing from his position against the wall, Eskel crossed to the door. “Tell me how to find Tesham Mutna and I’ll meet you there with the cart.”

Regis gave Eskel directions and Eskel departed. When his footsteps faded, Geralt stared at Regis. 

“There is really no other way than this,” he didn’t quite ask, because he already knew there wasn’t. 

Rather than replying, Regis stood and began moving around the space, packing things into his satchel. In went several small glass bottles, one already full of a dark liquid, the others empty, probably meant for taking his blood. Alongside those went a fresh bar of soap, which Geralt imagined they could use to wash afterward so they wouldn’t all have to stink of blood on the way back. He went into another room and brought back a tightly-wrapped bundle, wrapped in waxed paper and leather, which he also packed. 

"What is that?" Geralt asked.

"Rotting meat. It will attract necrophages. I trust you will be able to slay a host of those with a clear conscience, and their blood will serve as well as any other to tempt me once I am already compromised."

When Regis had packed everything he wanted, they went out into the moonlight together. Regis climbed into Roach’s saddle without even asking, scooting to make room for Geralt to seat himself in front.  The situation being what it was, for once Geralt did not find any eroticism in the press of Regis’s small body along his back. 

They rode south together. 

“So what is this Tesham Mutna place, and why does it have a cage capable of holding a higher vampire? Given that you can turn into a mist, I didn't think anything could hold you.”

Regis leaned his forehead against Geralt’s nape. 

“Tesham Mutna is a disgusting and shameful part of vampire history. Under any other circumstances I would wish to conceal it from you, but now--now it is perfect for our purposes, I suppose,” he said in a halting voice. He sighed, a startlingly human affectation, given that he did not need to breathe. “It is a place of torment. A torture chamber. Long ago, shortly after we arrived in this world, one among us named Khagmar developed such a taste and lust for human blood that in one night he could imbibe an entire village.”

Geralt’s mind flashed to what Regis had told him of his own history of addiction. While by Regis’s own report he had never reached  _ that _ grotesque pinnacle of indulgence, he had still harmed and even killed many. Regis had told Geralt and Dandelion and the others that in his youth he had spent little time actually speaking to humans. As a result he had believed that they led such brief lives that their suffering and deaths meant little. He had _begun_ drinking blood during full moon gatherings, with groups of vampires and willing humans. Such celebrations never resulted in the death of the humans involved. But once Regis had discovered the way blood made him feel--powerful and easy in his own skin for the first time--he had sought out humans on his own. And once he’d begun drinking, he said, once he’d become habituated and sensitized to the effect of mortal blood upon his mind, his already stunted morality had been obliterated. Humans had become nothing more than walking talking containers of his drug of choice. His drinking had escalated until he caused deaths and even got himself ‘killed’ the first time: an angry mob had caught him unawares and cut his head off, burying it underground and forcing him to spend fifty years regrowing his whole body. No other higher vampire had found him that time. But that had meant that he’d had long enough to reflect on his own behavior and its consequences both for him and others. 

Regis had related this morbid story to Geralt and the others with some shame but without being overwhelmed by it. For there to be an aspect of vampire history which even Regis found _more_ shameful than his own moral failings troubled Geralt. 

“Khagmar became...a kind of connoisseur. In Tesham Mutna he kept captive humans,  _ farming _ them like cattle. He selected humans with what he perceived to be the best taste and intensity of blood and  _ bred _ them, using his hypnotic powers to enforce his will when they would not cooperate.”

“Shit,” Geralt breathed. 

“Many vampires spoke out against this behavior. Many wished him to stop, because it brought trouble on the entire species,” Regis went on, the words dull and unhappy. “Humans wearied quickly of living in constant fear. They began to hunt us, seeking the aid of mages and Witchers in hunting us down.”

“And?” Geralt asked, confused at this. “Not like they could ever hope to kill you.”

“But they were bothersome,” Regis replied. “Forgive the comparison, but when have you ever enjoyed a mosquito buzzing around your head?”  Geralt was glad Eskel was not present to hear this.  “The point is, other vampires decided something had to be done. The cage was designed from a special alloy of silver, dalvinite, and meteorite steel. They forced Khagmar into it and left him there for over two centuries, hoping that with time he would see the error of his ways.”

“Two centuries," Geralt said thoughtfully. "I didn’t realize that vampires as a group cared that much about humans.”

“They don’t,” Regis denied. “They care for their privacy and wellbeing. Among higher vampires, Khagmar’s sin was not murder, as they do not consider humans to be deserving of so strong a word, but being so wanton about it that he drew attention to us. If Khagmar had contented himself with the humans he kept in cages in Tesham Mutna rather than also preying upon free humans as well, the other vampires would have left him alone.”

“Charming,” Geralt grimaced. “What happened to him in the end?”

“I don’t know,” Regis said. “I assume he reformed--though to what degree I don’t like to contemplate. Perhaps he has built a second Tesham Mutna somewhere else.” Regis shifted against Geralt’s back, clearly uncomfortable. “There is a reason my behavior incited no backlash from within my own community, Geralt. To them, I was merely pitiable for my lack of self-control, nothing more. Had I escalated rather than suffering the mortifying effects of my own recklessness, they might have intervened to protect themselves from more backlash such as Khagmar caused.” Regis let out a mirthless laugh. “I might have ended up in this cage much earlier, in fact.”

Geralt tried to think of something comforting to say, but his mind was an empty, buzzing blank.  On a hillside before them, Geralt could already see the ruins of a fortress--Tesham Mutna, he assumed. 

“This is precisely why we need to find and protect Dettlaff," Regis continued. "Most of the Elders who currently exist care little for humanity. But Dettlaff has the capacity to become an Elder someday, and he feels as I do. In your lifetime this will matter little, but six hundred years from now, a thousand, having even _one_ more Elder who is sympathetic will change a great many human lives.”

“What are Elders?” Geralt asked, feeling as though he were missing some crucial information. 

“Ah, forgive me, I have neglected to explain a vital point. Vampires grow more powerful with age, this is universally true for our kind. But there are a rare few who manifest power over _other vampires_\--the power to rule them, to enforce their will as necessary. Dettlaff has this power. For now, he is still young enough that its scope is limited. He can only truly exert himself upon lower vampires such as ekkimara and fleder. But someday, he will be able to command any vampire he wishes.”

“Don’t suppose there’s any sympathetic Elders we could call upon for help with Dettlaff,” Geralt asked, already knowing the answer. When Regis shook his head again it was no surprise. 

The crumbling fortress walls towered over them, blocking out the stars as they dismounted. Geralt tied Roach to a nearby tree. The two of them sat together on the steps to wait for Eskel. 

Sitting there, Geralt thought he could feel...something. An air of wrongness. Nearly a century of life as a Witcher had finely attuned his sense of such things, and now it told him that something evil lay below. Too few birds and insects and animals wandered the hills here. The silence lay too thick upon this place. 

“You sure about this?” Geralt asked at last. 

“I can only hope it’s worthwhile,” Regis replied. “If it helps us find and help Dettlaff, I will consider this very worth the cost. If not...then the pain is my way of paying my debt to him. My enormous debt.”

Geralt nodded. He understood. So many moments of being a father to Ciri had felt like this--doing something terrifying and dangerous with no promise that it would lead to a result he could use. He could not begrudge Regis his love or his commitment. He could only hope to support Regis in it as well as Regis himself had supported Geralt. 

Besides, the Duchess was as vicious in her anger as she was generous in her pleasure. She had ordered Dandelion to death for his faithlessness. If Geralt and Eskel could not stop Dettlaff, Geralt did not like to think of what she would want to do to the Witchers she had hired for the job. 

For half an hour Geralt escaped the knowledge of what was to come by hunting for a live animal whose blood they could use. When he returned near midnight carrying a live rabbit, pacified with Axii in his arms, he saw Eskel riding along the road on a cart. 

Time had run out for them to find another way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This portion of the game is almost comical to me in how grimharsh it is. I contemplated just skipping over it entirely, having them find some other way to locate Dettlaff. But in the end I think this section is an essential part of certain larger themes. So it's staying in and I'm just writing it in my own way.


	48. Tesham Mutna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: continued canon-typical violence and descriptions of past slavery/death, as well as torture and relapse for Regis. 
> 
> If you want to watch the canon version of this scene, you can see it [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oZWKMckv0). It's a doozy! I've changed a few things.

“Seen a lot of things in my time,” Eskel remarked with a grim smile as they made their way inside. “An ancient vampire dungeon, though--that’s new.”

“My, I feel honored,” Regis joked unhappily in return. “Two men with such a wealth of experience and I get to show them something new.”

“Shown me a lot of new things,” Gerald said quietly. 

But Regis did not acknowledge him, pushing into the dark. Perhaps seeking to mask his discomfort with talk, as Regis so often did, he began to ramble. 

“Toussaint shall always be important to my kind. During the Conjunction, the gate from our world into this one opened upon _ this _ land and no other. This was the first place we saw! In the centuries after we arrived, my people split into three--hmm. I suppose the closest human word would be ‘clans,’ and dispersed into the world. The clan to which Dettlaff and I both belong stayed here, in what humans now think of as Nilfgaard and the North. Another clan went over the Blue Mountains, and the third crossed the ocean.”

The three men passed by a shelf of books. Eskel’s head turned as he scanned the spines. He stopped, eyes wide, and pulled out a pair of books. 

“‘Human Husbandry and Care’? ‘Battery-Cage Versus Free-Range Humans’? This for real?” Eskel demanded. 

For a long moment Regis halted, frozen in place like a statue. 

“Khagmar observed humans, their behavior, over the many years he spent breeding them," he said slowly. "Those books are a...thorough survey of the topic.”

“You’ve _ read _ this,” Eskel spat. 

“Yes,” Regis said simply. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Though I assure you I had no hand in authoring them. In the years when I was...ah, reforming my ways, I researched the experiences of other vampires and their relationship to humans and blood addiction. Disgraceful, excruciatingly so, this particular page from our history, and thus necessary for me to know. I needed to fully understand what I was distancing myself from.”

Eskel threw the books down on the floor in disgust. 

Down long spiral staircases they went, winding ever deeper below ground. There they reached the cells.

They were small. If Geralt had lain down upon the floor and raised his arms above his head, he would have been able to touch walls with both his hands and feet. The rows of little barred boxes were ghastly, far away from any light or fresh air. Their occupants would have been trapped, blind, as they waited for their captor to bleed them to death. 

It reminded Geralt forcibly of the cells of slaves he’d freed in Skellige, humans captured and sold to profit a greedy Witcher and his friends. It reminded Geralt too of the cells below Oxenfurt from which he’d freed Síle and Margarita, where other mages had been brutalized until they died. Síle had been on the brink of death and only survived because Yen already had experience in keeping Avallac’h alive with her spells.

“This--this is--” Eskel hissed, breathing heavily. Geralt remembered, then, that Eskel had not been present for any of that. While he had undoubtedly seen vile things in his years, perhaps he never encountered anything like this so directly before. 

“I’d like to be able to turn back time,” Regis said into Eskel’s trailing silence. “I’d like to deny all of this happened, but...feeling shame for my brethren is all I can do.”

“Vampires don’t have a monopoly on this kind of monstrosity,” Geralt told them both. “The pyres outside of Novigrad prove that. The pogrom in which I _ died _ proves that.”

Regis swallowed audibly and led them even further down. 

At last they reached a large open chamber. Fresh air swept through the space from tunnels built into the walls at each of the four cardinal directions. White human bones, long picked clean, lay scattered and broken all over the floor. In the center of the room hung a man-sized upright cage suspended from a hook attached to a massive chain. 

Thinking about why both the tunnels and bones were here sent shivers down Geralt’s spine. This was where Khagmar had thrown the corpses, clearly--and the tunnels would have both drained the stench away and attracted necrophages, which in turn would have entered through the same tunnels. A horrifying symbiosis between Khagmar and every corpse-eating species for miles around. 

Eskel swept the bones aside with a few focused Aards, piling the heaps up along the walls so they would have a clear space in which to fight. Clouds of dust filled the air but were whipped away just as quickly by the constant airflow. 

Eskel crossed to the cage, rapping on one of the bars with a knuckle. 

“This’ll hold? Doesn’t look like anything special.”

Regis went to stand by his side. “I told you--Khagmar thrashed about inside it for over two centuries. Appearances can be deceiving. The bars are made of an alloy that will prevent any vampire from transforming into mist.”

Geralt looked at the cage. It was constructed so that its captive would only be able to stand, hands bound into stocks-like manacles across from the hinged door. Spending half an hour there would, Geralt thought, be unpleasant but tolerable. Spending more than _ two hundred years _ there--

“There has to be another way to find Dettlaff,” Geralt protested. He did not want to put Regis in that cage. 

“There is not,” Regis barked, sounding almost angry. “This is our only option. I have already exhausted everything else.”

“And we can’t do this without the cage?” Geralt asked, even though he knew it was a foolish question. 

The look of mixed anger and pity Regis gave him confirmed that. 

“Once I have drunk the blood,” he said in a slow, careful tone, “I shall believe my past self mistaken. I shall think I was an idiot to deny myself this bliss for so many years. I shall look at both of you and think of how much pleasure I could _ force _ you each to take in the act of my feeding. But in that moment, I will not see it as an act of force but of mutuality. I would repeat the lies that so many vampires tell themselves: that it is a _ privilege _ for a human to have this rare experience of a higher vampire. Further, I will be more aware than ever that your potent blood will help me regenerate the strength I still so keenly miss after my death.”

Regis stepped up to the cage, running his hands along the shackles as he continued. “I will tell myself that this time, _ this time _ my self-control will be better! I will think that because I value you both, that _ this _ time, unlike so many other times, I will be able to stop at only a pint each. I will feel confident that neither of you will come to any serious harm--and so I will drink, and drink, until you both lie dead upon the ground. By that point, I will be beyond guilt, glutted upon my own power, and I will tell myself that you were _only _ _ mortals _ and I was naive to pretend it could ever end any other way between us. Then, depending upon how your blood affected me, my mind would turn to nearby Francollarts, and all the souls residing there, and I would go on to do worse still.” 

Eskel and Geralt both stared at Regis. Eskel’s face was wholly impassive and even his heartbeat remained slow, every bit the emotionless Witcher people expected him to be--and Geralt knew him well enough to understand that this meant Eskel was very, very frightened indeed. 

“You’ve had a lot of experience with this,” was all Eskel said. 

“More than anyone should ever have,” Regis agreed. He opened his satchel, first drinking down the sangurium and then unwrapping the foul meat and laying slabs of it in front of each of the tunnels. Soon the putrid stink flowed up and out into the fields. 

Then he took the unresisting rabbit from Geralt’s hands, shifted his teeth, and bit into its throat, severing it all the way to the spine. The blood ran down his chin in dark streams and he dropped the lifeless little body to the floor. For several seconds he stood, licking his lips and then wiping his chin with his fingers and sucking them clean as well. _Relishing_ the taste.

Then he wavered, as though dizzy. He reached out to steady himself upon the bars of the cage. 

“We must hurry. I am--ah, more sensitive than I used to be, this is hitting me faster than I expected. My head is...already spinning. And you’re starting to smell so much more delicious.”

“You’re scaring me,” Geralt murmured as Regis stepped into the cage.

“I should,” Regis replied, expression miserable. But he unslung his satchel, handing it over to Geralt, who took it.

Emotionally bracing himself, Geralt snapped the door shut, and when Regis placed his wrists into the stocks, locked the mechanisms into place. They were designed to be easily unlatched by someone outside of the cage while someone within it would have no way to reach. 

“Least the cage will come off easy once we’re done,” Eskel said with grim optimism as he drew his silver blade. “It’ll be heavy as shit to carry up all those stairs, but the slats mean we can get a good grip.”

“Might be easier getting it out one of the tunnels,” Geralt grimaced, just now thinking of the logistics as well. “They’re probably a more direct run to the surface.”

A guttural growl echoed off the walls before it cut off sharply with an embarrassed gulp. Eskel’s neck craned around to look at Regis and Geralt’s gaze followed his. 

Regis’s eyes had darkened and his teeth grown huge and sharp. They glittered in the light of the torches Eskel had placed around the walls. 

“Regis--” Geralt started to say and then stopped when the vampire regarded him. All Geralt could think was: _ Yesterday I kissed that mouth and I looked into those eyes as I came. _

“Yes, Geralt?” 

Geralt’s tongue ran away from him. “Maybe we need a safeword? You know, something you’ll say when you can’t take it anymore?”

This made Regis laugh, bitter and sharp. Eskel also snorted. 

“And--hnn, what would you...do, once I’d uttered it?”

“Don’t know,” Geralt admitted. “Uhh, calm you down somehow?”

Above them Regis hummed in the way a man might when trying desperately to distract himself from something. “Hnn. Please, Geralt. You won’t be _ able _ to. We must forge through this, that is all--hahh--”

“Fine,” Geralt agreed. “But we’ll be here when this is over, okay? _ I’ll _ be here when this is over.”

Regis nodded. His lashes fell shut. 

The two Witchers paced in the dark. The torches did little to relieve the oppressive weight of this deep, terrible place. Soon Regis began to pull on the manacles, rattling the heavy metal. Testing his captivity. 

“The beasts have caught the scent,” Regis whispered. “I can hear them. I--it won’t be long now.”

The first ghoul slunk into the chamber half a minute later. It ran at Eskel, who beheaded it with a neat sweep of his sword. The blood spurted past him, splattering on the floor and steaming in the cold. 

Five scurvers came next, tumbling out of the passages one after the other. Their thin skin flexed around their spikes and Geralt gritted his teeth and cast Quen. He _had_ to maintain the shield. A few blows to a scurver and it would blow apart in self-defense, killing itself alongside its prey to leave both carcasses for its kin.

Geralt stabbed the first one in the chest and then ducked away. It burst, the brutal quills thundering against his shield. Eskel caught the second one, cutting off an arm, but it had already been injured by its dying packmate. It burst too, sending the next nearest one into a panic. 

Soon the floor was awash with blood and viscera.

The cage shook as Regis pulled on it, swinging side to side as he desperately tried to free himself. When he could not, he let out a grinding, gut-clenching rumble that trembled down Geralt's spine. Hairs rose on the skin of his arms. 

Six ghouls stalked out of the west tunnel then. One of them shrieked as it launched itself at Eskel, who cleaved it almost in half with one swing. This time he couldn’t move fast enough and the blood covered his leg. 

Regis’s keening cry filled the whole space and seemed to reverberate in Geralt's skull. 

When the ghouls were dead, Eskel and Geralt stood side by side, panting. They stared upward. 

Regis’s eyes were fixed on Eskel--on the blood that now dripped from him. 

Another cluster of scurvers tumbled into the chamber. The first one rushed Geralt and he slipped in the blood, his heel catching on one of the fallen quills so he tumbled onto his back and had to roll just as Eskel cut its head off. The scurver burst, showering them both with spines.

Geralt didn’t quite get the shield up in time and one caught him along the temple. He darted one hand up quickly to see if it had hit bone, but thankfully found a mere surface wound--yet, one that would bleed profusely. By the time he’d killed two more scurvers, blood flowed down his cheek and jaw and dripped into the collar of his shirt.

Regis _howled_. 

“Release me!” he shrieked. “I’ll _kill them all_ for touching you, I’ll--”

The rest of the words muffled into nothingness. Possibly Regis had remembered himself enough to stop. Geralt didn’t have the attention to care. 

He spun and cut and jabbed, he held the shield till he couldn’t and then ducked and weaved until he caught his breath. 

Then a fleder appeared, no doubt drawn by the same overpowering metallic miasma that was driving Regis mad. 

At this Regis unleashed a torrent of snarled words in the vampire tongue. Threats against this interloper, perhaps, or promises not to hurt Geralt if only Geralt would comply. 

It didn’t matter. The fleder scented Geralt’s warm living blood even through everything else and rushed him, bursting his shield in a shower of sparks that knocked the lesser vampire back--directly into Eskel’s upswing. 

Everything after that blurred. Finally Geralt stood in the pile of body parts and viscera and nothing else came down the tunnels. They must have called damn near every necrophage in the area, and no less than three fleders. A small pack of them had to have been sheltered nearby. 

The cage above shook with the force of Regis’s struggle, rocking and swinging. 

“I think he’s had plenty of time to marinate," Eskel panted. “So now we gotta burn the bodies."

“We can't, Regis is in here too. He’s already burned to death once!” Geralt protested, but even as he said it he knew Eskel was right. If they left all this meat until the blood dried, _ more _ creatures would come to the feast. And Geralt and Eskel were both too tired to go on.

"We can't carry the cage out with him thrashing like that. We have to burn the bodies first, then get the cage once he's calmed down."

A lever on the wall lifted the cage higher, winching it to the high ceiling thirty feet up. That was the best Geralt could do for Regis now--keep him out of the actual flames. It would still be intolerably hot, and Regis would stew in the smoke, but he couldn't asphyxiate. Which meant it would be hellish but survivable. 

Igni’s elemental fire would burn anything, even a mess as wet as this. So the two Witchers walked to the steps and then unleashed a torrent of fire until the whole charnel heap caught and blazed. The cross-current of air whipped the flames hotter still. Together they sprinted up the stairs, slamming the door behind them against both the billowing smoke and Regis’s desperate attempts to escape. 

Geralt leaned his brow against the heavy wood and just tried to breathe. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t--his chest clutched tight, his throat ached, and all he could hear was the screaming.

It was Stygga all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly cannot believe the safeword conversation is canonical. Every time I hear it I'm just like...yeah, how many times have you already had to have conversations with Regis about safewords, Geralt. 
> 
> In addition, canon gives no explanation for how Geralt STOPS the tide of monsters, and indeed just cuts off the action and teleports the extra baddies away once things progress far enough. By the game's own internal logic, the smell of blood and carrion would continue attracting even more critters from further and further away, so burning the corpses is the only viable option to get it to stop. 
> 
> The game states that a whole group of higher vampires was involved in the running and use of Tesham Mutna, and that its use not only included the farming of humans but also torturing Khagmar with the smell of blood. I think that's over the top, and I wanted to move away from the idea that many vampires engaged in Khagmar's level of blood addiction. So instead, I'm going with saying that while there's a systemic problem with how vampires view humans, it's actually rare for them to go as bad as Khagmar (and to a lesser degree Regis). So I figure the arena-type space where Geralt fights all the monsters in the game really is just a corpse-disposal site.


	49. Aftermath

The furious shrieks had long since faded into a muffled sobbing. When Geralt could wait no longer, hands shaking and palms slick with sweat, he pulled open the door. 

Smoke billowed into the hall and Geralt and Eskel both bent over, retching and wheezing. Blackened scurver and ghoul smelled _ nightmarish _. Reflexive tears ran down their cheeks as they struggled for air. 

The Witchers held their breath till they got to the bottom of the stairs. The air was clearer near the bottom, but the lingering heat soon had them sweating under their armor. Embers still smouldered among the ash and seared the soles of their boots as they walked. Neither of them dared an Aard now, they’d be overwhelmed by the flying coals and ash. 

The hellish red light glinted off the bars of the cage and the small figure slumped at the bottom of it. 

“We’re coming, Regis,” Geralt called up. 

He thanked his lucky stars for the leather of his gloves as he pulled the still-hot metal lever to lower the cage. With a squeal of ancient gears the cage sank. Geralt held the lever till the cage sat securely on the stone and the chain began to pile up on top. 

Then he ran over the Regis. Ash smeared Regis's clothes and skin and obscured the grey spots along his hairline and throat. One black eye blinked miserably up at Geralt before it flickered shut again. The oversized incisors clicked together as Regis swallowed.

Geralt wanted to vomit. Was any contract worth this? Was even their beautiful vineyard worth this? 

But Eskel pulled the sample jars out of the satchel. Unsheathing his knife, Eskel sliced through Regis’s sleeve and opened up the bulging blue vein that ran along the skinny forearm. Regis barely flinched. 

Right, Geralt thought. That was the _ point _ of all this, wasn’t it. 

Afterward Geralt tried not to remember heaving the cage sideways and into the tunnel leading out to the north. Two human men could not have lifted the heavy metal frame, much less the person inside it, but two Witchers could just barely manage. 

Out in the moonlight Regis looked even worse, a miserable animal shivering in a trap. He was silently weeping now, tears leaving stark clean tracks on his grey, inhuman skin. 

Geralt hated the cage. He vividly imagined pulling open the stocks, yanking open the door--but even he knew not to take risks with a higher vampire only just out of a bloodrage. 

Eskel untied Roach, using a rope to attach her halter to the cart as a lead, and then he clambered into the driver’s seat. Geralt sat in the back beside the cage, reaching between the bars to lay his hands on Regis’s side. He braced the cage against his crossed knees so it wouldn’t rock as they set off down the path. 

“We’re taking you back to the cemetery first,” Geralt murmured. “We can wait out the last effects of the blood on you there. Get you new clothes and clean ourselves off in the lake nearby.”

“No need,” came the gritty, mumbled response from the cage. It surprised Geralt how intelligible Regis was even around the fangs. “Be fine now. You c’n go, brew the potion. Give you ‘structions.”

“Like hell you are and like hell I will,” Geralt growled, squeezing bony handfuls of Regis’s ribcage and hip. “If it’s important to brew the potion soon, I’ll do it by your side in the cemetery, or Eskel can do it. Otherwise it can fucking wait, you self-sacrificing idiot.”

“You’re one to talk, Wolf,” Eskel said from the front. 

The long, pointed tips of Regis’s ears lifted as he smiled. 

By the time they reached the edge of the gravestones, Regis looked human aside from his eyes. Geralt wanted have let him out of the cage then, but Eskel refused to take chances. 

Instead Eskel unbuckled his armor, laying it in a pile on the cloth he’d brought to cover the cage and wrapping it so the gory smell of it wouldn’t be as strong. He encouraged Geralt to do the same. 

“If you’re so fussed about him, stay here. I’ll go to the lake first. By the time I’m done washing, he’ll probably be fine to let out.”

“Take the soap,” Regis said quietly. “I made it myself.”

Eskel dug through Regis’s bag to find the pale square. He sniffed it. Geralt could just catch the herbal scent of it from here. It would, Geralt realized, make Eskel smell rather more like Regis himself. 

Eskel took the soap. 

When he was out of earshot, Geralt sighed. 

“I’m sorry about the fire. I’m sorry about _all_ of this, Regis.” He stroked along the slim waist. “How’re you feeling?”

The body under his palm shifted as Regis inhaled. “Far from ideal...and some time must pass before I fully recover. But I’m a bit better, thank you.”

“You’re making whole sentences again, so you really must be,” Geralt said half to himself. 

Regis smiled again. 

“I will not disappear if you let me out of your sight or stop touching me, you know,” Regis rasped out. 

Glaring at the smaller man, Geralt narrowed his eyes. “Is that your way of saying you want me to go away?”

“No. No it is not. I just do not wish you to feel obligated.”

“Obligated to what? To _care_ about you?” Geralt demanded. “You already died once for me! If I can do anything to make this easier, I owe you--”

“You owe me nothing, Geralt,” Regis interrupted, blinking, and at last his eyes finally cleared. The sclera were still red and inflamed, but they were now a more human color. “I didn’t die for _ you _ . I died because of a mage with too much power while I was out on an adventure _I chose_ because it felt meaningful, because I needed--” His lips pursed, gaze steady on Geralt’s face. “Well. The point, my dear, is that you were not the one to kill me. And all of this--” he waved one hand the limited amount he could, given the stocks, “--is because of a debt I owe someone else, not you.”

“You needed what,” Geralt asked, and Regis’s sunken eyes fluttered closed. Geralt knew he had hit upon a nerve. “Tell me.”

For a long stretch there was only the crickets in the grasses and the frogs in the nearby lake. The trees moved in a soft breeze that only stirred both of their reeking clothes. 

“I strive to live like a...a person, not a disease.” Regis began at last. “The human word ‘gentleman’ amuses me greatly. So often it is applied to those who are not gentle at all, who merely by some accident of birth happen to have greater means with which to hurt others. The same description could be applied to me, of course, but I like the word as an aspiration: to be a _ gentle _ man.” 

One corner of Geralt’s mouth crooked up. Whatever Regis was about to say was undoubtedly important, which of course meant he took time to meander around to it. 

“The consequence of my effort is that I have ceased to feel good among both humans and my own kind,” Regis admitted at last, elongated hands balling into knobby fists. “As the endless years Dettlaff has regifted me stretch before me, I fear sometimes that I have made a grave mistake. That all I have achieved is an intolerable empty existence in which I may be terribly, _ inhumanly _ alone.”

“That’s not true,” Geralt breathed, and withdrew one arm from inside the cage to lay on Regis’s clenched hands. “You know that’s not true.”

“I know of no such thing,” Regis insisted, eyes now bright and hard on Geralt’s face. “Neither Witchers nor vampires are easily prone to fear, but we have both felt it. Perhaps more than any other vampire alive I know how fragile even an immortal life can be. And mortal lives--you snuff out like candles in the face of any stray breath! Every moment I spend with you, I feel your impending departure.”

Geralt held the dark stare steadily. He took one deep breath, then a second. 

“No wonder you’re so set on finding Dettlaff,” he said at last. “But in the meantime--Regis, you have to be aware that I want you here. Yes, I’m mortal, so maybe you’ll only have me another ten years, sixty, even a hundred or more. But you also know better than most how very much can happen in even a single year.”

At this Regis’s lips curled into a soft, hesitant smile. 

“That you can say that to me even after everything you have seen today, everything you know about me--you are truly exceptional, my dear.” Regis shook his head where it lolled against one shoulder. Disbelieving, perhaps. 

“Eskel would call me truly stupid,” Geralt grinned, and then realized he was making a joke out of a serious moment. “But yes, I want this--I want you. You died without me ever getting to say that I--that I wanted--” Damn, actually shaping the words was still so difficult. “That I loved you,” he forced out, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

They stared at each other for what felt like a long time. 

“I could have at least waited till we cleaned up to say that,” Geralt grumbled at last, now painfully self-conscious. “Look, you have Dettlaff. I understand if you don’t feel the same. Not like I don’t have someone else anyway, I just--”

“No,” Regis interrupted. “No, please do not worry, I am delighted. You merely caught me by surprise. Truly, Geralt--I’m a monster, you _ know _ I am, and you have me in a _ cage _ right now for your own protection! Of all the times to tell me--well. As I said, I'm surprised.”

Regis almost never grinned. Possibly it was just not his way, possibly it was too human a behavior, or possibly he was self-conscious about his teeth, whose shape even in human form slanted a little in a fashion that was strange and suggestive of their inhuman purpose. But when he smiled now, his lips pulled away from his teeth, just a little. 

They fell into a much easier silence after that. Regis still looked very unwell, and Geralt wasn’t sure how to know if he was ready to be let out of the cage. But least Geralt had finally said what he’d sent Regis to the grave without letting him hear. 

When Eskel returned from his starlit bath he looked at Geralt, holding Regis’s hands despite the stocks, and leaned up into the cart to pull the cage open. After that it was the work of a second to unlock the shackles. 

It quickly became clear that Regis couldn’t stand on his own, however, so Geralt wrapped one thin arm around his neck and lifted Regis out of the cage. An arm under Regis’s knees and Geralt had him up and away from the ghastly metal.

Strange how light Regis was, given that he could lift Geralt with one arm when at full strength. 

“Go on together,” Eskel waved them toward the lake as he mounted up into the driver’s seat of the cart again. “There’s no drowners, just frogs. I left the soap in a tree by the water. I’ll take the cart back to Corvo Bianco, you two can come along in your own time.”

The horse was irritable from the late hour, turning its ears back and letting out a grumbling whinny when Eskel clicked his tongue at it and shook the reins. But it trotted away with him nonetheless, the cart and cage and heap of armor all rattling together over the stones and ruts. 

Geralt picked his way carefully through the trees and graves. When he reached the spot where they’d enjoyed each other so recently, he could still smell their seed in the grass. 

It was easy enough to locate the tree containing the soap by smell as well. Geralt stopped to set Regis down where dirt verged into sand. He could just manage to stand on his feet if he leaned against the tree. 

“All right if I...?” Geralt inquired, hands on the fastenings of Regis’s clothes. Regis nodded. 

They both knew that Regis could probably do this for himself but that was not the point. 

Off came the belt first, Geralt being careful not to let the various items tied to it slide off as he set it aside. Next went the fastenings on the quilted over-tunic, battered and patched with wear so that the pale felt inside the fabric showed through in several places. After that came the much smaller buttons on the patterned tunic beneath. The fabric of it had once been very fine, both soft to the touch and subtly brocaded, but it too had seen the wear of years--and now one arm of it had been knifed open and bled upon. There was no cut any longer, that had long since healed away, but the stain and the tear would remain. 

When Geralt got to the thin linen shift underneath, undoing the simple knot which held the neck closed, the opened clothing allowed Regis’s own smell to waft up to Geralt, detectable even through the clinging pall of smoke. Geralt did his best not to inhale too obviously. 

He knelt then, unbuckling the cuffed boots of soft black leather, then undoing the buttons at the ankles of Regis’s leggings. The socks Geralt pulled off and tucked into the boots. 

Wondering how far Regis would let this go, Geralt slid his hands up under the tunics, finding the placket of the leggings and slipping the buttons one by one. Regis’s gaze lay heavy on him as he eased the leggings down around Regis’s ankles, waiting for him to step out of them one foot at a time. 

The knots holding Regis’s undergarments closed came apart with no more than a few tugs. The loose semitransparent fabric puddled around his feet. 

Finally, at long last, Geralt stood. Only a hands-breadth of air lay between their bodies as he tucked his fingers into the wrists of Regis’s gloves, pushing them down until they fell to the grass and their bare palms touched. 

The low, rasping rumble of a purr started in the center of Regis’s chest. 

“It took a great deal of effort to hide this from you,” Regis admitted then, breaking the laden silence. “Holding this shape is not the hard part, that becomes natural after enough years. But to conceal all the ways I respond that are not human requires constant vigilance and effort.”

“You don’t have to with me, at least,” Geralt smiled. He eased the tunics off Regis’s shoulders now they were no longer blocked by his gloves. “Or Eskel. He may not like you yet, but he won’t expect you to be anything but what you are.”

With that Geralt bunched up the shift, lifting it over Regis’s head. It left Regis wearing nothing but an amused look and the ashen smudges. 

“That alone is a greater blessing than you realize.” He tapped at Geralt’s armor with one lusciously bare finger. “Come, join me in the water.”

With that he wobbled his way out into the lapping of the lake.

Geralt watched him go with mixed concern and tenderness. It was still strange acknowledging how small Regis truly was. He took up so much space verbally and his strength was so disproportionate to his size that Geralt almost forgot sometimes. But then he was confronted with moments like tonight, where the moon traced the almost hourglass shape of Regis’s diminutive waist and hips, and Geralt realized that Regis was only a little bigger than Yennefer. 

Hastily Geralt stripped off his armor and swords, then the clothes underneath. He snatched the soap out of the tree and followed Regis into the water. 

It was late enough now that the lake had lost most of the day’s heat. Yet even so it was warmer and more pleasant than many places Geralt had bathed. Sand cushioned his weary footfalls and swirled around his ankles as he waded out to the deeper water where Regis stood submerged up to his chest. 

Taking up a position close to Regis’s side again, Geralt worked up a good lather with his hands and then held them up in silent offering. Regis nodded, bending his neck, and Geralt wrapped the vampire’s face in his palms. With care he rubbed he suds into the grey sideburns, along the high cheekbones, and up into the fine hairs along Regis’s nape. The purr ignited again and Regis’s eyes flickered shut. 

A few palmfuls of water and another lather had Geralt digging his fingers into Regis’s hair, combing through the singed white and gray. 

Regis closed the space between them, leaning his forehead against Geralt’s collarbone and wrapping arms that still shook around Geralt’s waist. The plush lump of his sex pressed against Geralt’s thigh. 

“Hard to finish washing your face this way,” Geralt remarked, not at all complaining. 

The proximity of Regis’s mouth to Geralt’s neck (right on top of the crusted blood that dripped from his temple) had him remembering when Regis had said he smelled _ delicious_. Geralt could not forget the hunger in the vampire’s blank inhuman eyes or the guttural shrieks of his fury. 

But that was not happening now. _ This _ was the Regis Geralt knew and loved--the Regis that was the result not of addiction but of decades of thought and effort and gentleness. 

By the time they emerged from the water, much cleaner and steadier, Geralt’s fingers and toes had pruned. The fact that Regis’s didn’t do the same fascinated Geralt. 

They fetched new clothes from the crypt, gathered the other ingredients they would need tomorrow, and together they rode to Corvo Bianco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, you can tear twink Regis from my cold dead fingers. I'm fully aware that his in-game model is the same size as Geralt, but the books repeatedly describe him as slender and anyway I don't care. I'm living my best life here and nobody can stop me. Also the vampire-purring thing softestpunk came up with is the Good Shit.


	50. Resonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm always self-conscious posting chapters like this which are A) mostly talking and B) mostly a rehash of what happens in the game. It feels like Bad Writing™ somehow. But hey, I figure if you as my readers don't like it, you can just skip over it and read the parts of the fic you like! As it is, I've done my best to expand on plot elements and character interactions I'm interested in, as well as minimizing the ones I dislike.

In the end it took very little time to actually brew the potion. Regis prepared it to his exacting specifications, chattering at Geralt and Eskel the whole time, before finally setting a small vial of pale green liquid down on the table. 

Eskel regarded it with obvious distaste. 

“You’re sure it has to be me,” he asked. 

“It could be Geralt,” Regis replied placidly. “But it will be better if it is you.”

“Won’t tell me why, though,” Eskel pressed. 

“I could,” Regis agreed again. “But it is something which I do not feel it is my right to disclose. If you absolutely insist then I will tell you, but I think the information would, at this point, cause you much more distress than relief.”

“Really not selling this,” Eskel grumbled. He picked up the vial, then stared at Geralt, who looked back anxiously. “Oh well. Bottoms up.” 

He drank the vial. 

Geralt and Regis both watched him as he shifted on the bed, settling himself more comfortably, until he let out a sudden, “Oh,” of surprise. 

His slow deep breaths became sharp gasps. Black veins bulged out on his face and neck, a sure sign of a Witcher having been exposed to something toxic. Then his eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed, head lolling against his shoulder.

Cautiously, Geralt knelt on the bed and moved Eskel to lie prone. A fine trembling ran up and down his limbs, accompanied by the twitching of his hands and feet. Once or twice his head jerked, making Geralt glad he’d moved Eskel so he wouldn’t hurt himself on the wall or the bedframe. 

Several times Eskel’s breathing became shallow, and when Geralt laid a hand on his chest his heart was fast. But within a half-hour Eskel sighed deeply and the trembling stopped, and ten minutes after that his veins faded back into his skin and color returned to his cheeks. 

He awoke with a snort, eyes searching around the room until he saw Geralt and relaxed again. 

“Oh,” he repeated, wincing as though from a headache as he sat up. 

“You survived,” Geralt observed, laying a hand on Eskel’s sweaty nape to comfort himself as much as the other man. “How do you feel?”

Shaking his head a little and rubbing at his eyes, Eskel sneezed once and then shrugged. 

“Tasted bad the first time around and now it’s like something sicked-up in my mouth, but I’m not bad. And it worked.”

Regis leaned forward in his seat, eyes wide. “What did you see?”

“Didn't tell me I'd be getting this from _Dettlaff's_ perspective," Eskel said grumpily, but then went on to say, "I saw De la Croix.” Eskel wiggled his toes, then shifted his weight onto one hand and flexed the other as though to release tension. “The knight chopped into pieces and dropped in the river, alongside Dettlaff’s hand. His death did not come easy. Dettlaff had made friends with him, followed him around like a stray dog almost--and then was given a note with De la Croix’s name on it, detailing how to kill him. It was _after_ that he killed the man and chopped up his corpse.” Shaking his head, Eskel finally met Regis’s eyes. “When Dettlaff tossed the parts in the river, he cried and punched the walls. Then cut off his _own_ _hand_ in a fit--the one that committed the murder.”

Wincing, Regis stood, pressing his own right hand to his mouth. He paced around the room.

“So that’s how he--but it’s--Dettlaff is _ painfully _ loyal, to a fault. Killing someone who’s grown dear to him--what he must be feeling, I can’t--” At this Regis stopped, closing his eyes and steadying himself. When he had himself under control, he said, “Please, did you see anything else?”

“Yeah,” Eskel said, stretching before he stood. “I know where Dettlaff lives. Been squatting in a toymaker’s shop on the waterfront of Beauclair. Could probably find the place if we went to the neighborhood. Got a feeling we’ll find something we need there.”

A flurry of activity followed that excellent news. The Witchers donned their armor and swords (freshly-cleaned by Barnabas-Basil and smelling much better as a result), saddled their horses, and the three rode for Beauclair. 

This time Geralt actually got to enjoy the feeling of Regis's body against his back, slim arms around his waist while the sun shone on all of them. 

Finding the toymaker’s shop proved remarkably simple. Eskel offered to break down the door with a quick Aard, but Regis proved that unnecessary when he simply misted inside and unlocked it. 

“Nice,” Eskel said in admiration. “Ever consider becoming a burglar? Skill like that’d come in handy.”

Holding open the door and gesturing them inside like a gracious host, Regis replied, “I considered it briefly, but ultimately concluded it would be terribly dull.”

Regis shut the door behind them, moving into the space with his face lifted, inhaling deeply. 

“He here?” Geralt asked, dropping his voice. The space was cramped, filled with shelves of toys. It would be a terrible place for a fight. 

Thankfully Regis shook his head. “No. But he was here recently, his scent’s still strong.”

Both Witchers sniffed upon hearing this. Mixed among the smells of paint, varnish, fabric, and glue was the smell of fresh shoe polish, leather, and a skin-smell remarkably similar to Regis’s. To Geralt’s embarrassment, a little tingle of pleasure went down his spine at the scent. Clearly his brain associated it with being naked and physical with Regis. 

The strange thing all of them quickly discovered was that the dust had been disturbed on a pile of worn and broken toys, and also that clean, mended toys with fresh glue and paint on them sat on shelves otherwise thick with dust. 

“He unwind by fixing toys between murders?” Eskel asked, poking at a dangling cluster of creepy segmented puppets. 

Regis let out a long-suffering noise of dismay. “Really now, must you? He has been very unhappy, if this is how he is coping while he is alone, then--”

“Relax. We all do weird shit when we’re stressed. I’m just surprised, is all.”

Regis subsided. 

Upstairs, the half-familiar smell intensified. Just as with Regis, it bore a vague similarity to human scents while still being little like them. Absent was the stink of unwashed armpits, socks, or groin--instead it was a slightly musky scent Geralt found even more disturbingly pleasant the stronger it got. 

“So this is his nest,” Eskel remarked, eyes tracking over the cosy space. Unlike the abandoned toy shop below, Dettlaff had cleaned in here, thoroughly. The surfaces were dust-free, and a single small bed, probably not long enough to comfortably contain a man of Dettlaff’s height, was neatly made. But the scent concentrated strongly there, indicating Dettlaff had slept or sat there often.

Above the bed, drawn directly onto the whitewash of the wall, was a portrait of a pretty woman. Something about her face seemed familiar to Geralt, though he could not place why. 

“Dettlaff do this?” he asked, and Regis came up to his side and nodded. 

“He’s a very proficient artist. During my convalescence, he drew a staggering number of overly flattering portraits of me. But I don’t know who the woman is.”

“A lover maybe?” Geralt asked, but Regis shrugged. 

“I don’t rightly know. He has slept with various bruxae and katakan over the centuries, so this might be the human form of one of the ones I haven’t met.”

Scrunched up in a ball near the bed they found a letter. 

“‘Dettlaff van der Eretein,’” Regis read aloud, his eyes going wide, “‘You do not know us but we know you--to be a vampire. We also know of your weakness for the wench they call Rhenawedd.’”

Both Witchers clustered at Regis’s side to examine the letter as he read on. His voice began to shake. 

“‘We shall chain her down and let rats feed upon her. We shall flay the skin from her flesh--Yet you can save her. You need but travel to Beauclair, where you shall slay five men in the manner we prescribe. You will complete each killing within three days of being given their names. Fail, and the next letter you receive will contain a memento of your failure: your beloved’s finger.’” 

Eskel took the letter from Regis and scented it as Regis took Geralt by the hand. He looked manic, eyes wide as he smiled in a way that had little to do with happiness.

“There you have it! Proof positive that it is as I said and Dettlaff did not kill of his own accord! A blackmailer’s sunk their claws into him.”

“Explains the messenger who came to Corvo Bianco last night, too,” Eskel added, and when the other two looked at him, he indicated the letter. “Milton de Peyrac-Peyran is dead. We only managed to save him temporarily. Duchess had been trying to find us to bring us the news. Dettlaff must have gotten the name the morning we arrived, tried to kill Milton that night, and finished the job later after we stopped him.”

The look of relief left Regis’s face at this. “That makes _four_ men already. I thought you had kept him from one victim at least, but no. He couldn’t even be spared that much.”

Squeezing his shoulder in support, Geralt tried to pull Regis’s attention away from this perceived failure. “The blackmailer, any idea who it could be? Dettlaff have any enemies?”

But at this Regis’s brows drew together over his nose. “Dettlaff has hated people occasionally--men who intruded into his land or harmed the vampires in his pack. But with his powers, it has only rarely come to the shedding of blood. His mesmerism is _ very _ strong, a much more powerful and lasting version of your Axii. And given his strength, the few he has been forced to act upon never lived long.”

“One might’ve come to his senses later, then, and been angry at being manipulated,” Eskel sighed. “Happens with Axii too. Or it might be someone who escaped his grasp.”

But Regis shook his head. “That is possible in theory, but it is not how vampire compulsion works, and I know of none who fit the second description."

"How can you be so sure?" Eskel demanded.

Regis only looked thoughtful at this. "After being bedridden for years, with little to do but talk to Dettlaff, I think I know him very well indeed. Dettlaff has little understanding of the need for deception, so he would not have lied, and I like to think I am very good at winkling information out of people even when they do not wish to speak.”

Geralt snorted at this--Regis had done it to him often enough before Stygga that Geralt could vouch for that particular skill. 

“As for the few men he hunted in earnest...” Regis continued, “Well, he is devilishly dangerous, as you can well imagine. I do not believe any of them could still be alive. So whoever this is, I must conclude it is someone new.”

“And bold,” Geralt went on, picking up long black hairs from the bed’s pillow. “They kidnapped a _ vampire’s _ lover. Blackmailer’s skilled, someone special. Have to wonder if it’s not one of your kind.”

“Mm. The plot thickens,” Regis agreed.

“So who's Rhenawedd?” Eskel interjected then. He jerked his head at the portrait on the wall. “That her?”

“I imagine so,” Regis answered. “She is his one-time lover. Until recently, the _sole_ human to whom he formed a serious attachment. Because she _ accepted _ him," Regis strongly emphasized this word. "She knew both that he was a vampire and that he found navigating human interaction stressful in the extreme. With her aid and care, he gained a basic capacity to move in what he experiences as a hostile and overwhelming world. She began the work with him that I strive to continue.” 

Regis tapped upon the ring he’d reclaimed from Dettlaff’s severed hand, shaking his head in dismay. “I cannot overstate her influence upon him--the style of clothes he now wears, the furnished estate he owns in which I recuperated, the rudimentary manners he has--all of that originated with her and the years they spent together. To give you a frame of reference, when I met him in our youth, if he bothered with clothing at all he wore whatever rags he could steal from human settlements, patched just enough to retain heat. I never once saw him in shoes, because he hated the way they felt. Yet _now_ the place he’s been living smells of boot polish, because he cares enough about his appearance to have his shoes frequently cleaned.”

"Not what I'd consider the height of civilization, but you take what you can get, I suppose," Eskel muttered. 

“So for her to be under threat…” Geralt grimaced. “No wonder he’s doing this. Ever meet her?”

At this Regis’s face pinched up still further. “Never had the pleasure. She, ah, deserted him shortly before he saved me. He always insisted that she’d gone missing, but I never believed that.”

“No?” Geralt asked, moving close to Regis to lay a hand on his arm. “Why’d he think it then?”

“I asked him about it several times, trying to determine if he was correct in believing that her departure was anything but her own choice. When he told me that her belongings disappeared with her, I concluded that he had merely been the victim of an awkward breakup, not anything worse.”

“She took her things and he _ still _ doesn’t get it?” Eskel scoffed. 

Regis narrowed his eyes at him. “I find his innocence worth protecting, and his honesty and belief in others inspiring, if also rather tragic in circumstances like these. Do you _truly_ see unwavering loyalty and faith as pathetic?”

At this Eskel looked chastened, crossing his arms and sighing. “No, you’re right, sorry. Got no place to judge, I’ve often pined after people I knew would never have me, and that’s no better.”

Geralt shifted uncomfortably at this while Regis went on, moving into Eskel’s space and looking at him intently. 

“He could not fathom what reason she would have to leave because he does not grasp the human capacity for deceit and selfishness, and nor does he understand the ways he often comes across to others. When Dettlaff loves someone, it is absolute. He desires to share everything good he has with them, including his pack. She was his beloved, his lover--his _mate_.”

“Would’ve thought that was you,” Eskel said, turning away from the vampire to go on examining the room. 

“We are not humans bound by some ridiculous notion of monogamy,” Regis scoffed. “A vampire who is lucky enough to encounter multiple compatible partners may have more than one mate of more than one type. What I have with him is completely different from what he had with Rhenawedd, or indeed what I have with Geralt.”

“Lucky you,” Eskel muttered. 

"So why did she leave?" Geralt inquired, curious now. 

"I do not know for certain, but I imagine that something angered him one day and he frightened her. He would have been no threat to _her_, of course, but he loses control of his shape quite easily when upset, and often works through his feelings physically. Howling, shredding the furniture, that sort of thing." He shrugged. "You've seen what an upset vampire is like; it's not something every human would wish to see more than once. That has always been my theory for why Rhenawedd left him in the end. Regardless, she departed less than a year before Dettlaff found my remains. Searching for her was why he was out in the world and away from his pack to begin with. I think that had he _not_ found me--and thus a greater and more urgent obligation--that he would have kept searching for her indefinitely. Or at least until he could be certain that a human lifespan was over." Regis shook his head. "Dettlaff talked about her frequently, always with mixed gratitude and tenderness and anxiety at what might have happened to her. But it's clear to me that she was both clever and _completely_ done with him. A vampire has even keener senses than a Witcher, so the fact that she managed to elude one for almost a year says a great deal about both how well she knew him and her own mental faculties."

In the corner of the room Eskel knelt down, picking up a handful of white cards and reading them. 

They turned out to be the names of Dettlaff’s four victims along with instructions for how to stage the murders, which meant that the cards had almost certainly come from the blackmailer. Eskel even recognized one of them from his vision. Geralt pocketed the cards along with the blackmail letter in case they helped somehow. 

“So to summarize, even if Rhenawedd did abandon him, someone’s actually kidnapped her now,” Geralt said. “And he’s prepared to kill to get her back. I hate that he’s doing this, but I can’t say I blame him. I’ve done stupider and worse things to protect Ciri and the others I love.”

“So what if we were to find Rhenawedd?” Eskel asked, and the other two turned wide eyes on him. “Don’t have any good leads on how to start with that, but it would solve this whole situation, right?”

Everyone agreed that this was a good idea. Which meant that the next step was to try to recruit Dettlaff into participating in the plan as well.

Geralt held out very little hope for this. If Dettlaff had cut himself off from all contact for months on end, it seemed unlikely that he would change his mind. Nothing about the situation had changed except that now he had even more reason to feel ashamed of himself and thus deny himself contact with his loved ones. 

But Regis stayed behind in Dettlaff’s place to try to talk to him. It was the only plan they currently had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the game when Geralt takes the Resonance potion, it causes a grand mal seizure and almost kills him (which deeply upsets Regis to watch, not that this gets acknowledged or cared about) and then they still have to follow more leads to find out where Dettlaff has been living. So I said Fuck That. Eskel takes the potion and it's fine and relatively easy and they get the useful information right away, the end.


	51. Sangreal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that's mostly a game rehash, which means I'm a little self-conscious about it. Ah well.

Guardsmen from the Duchess quickly found the two Witchers. They requested in the politest terms (which everyone involved knew concealed a command) that they all go to the palace together to speak to the Duchess. 

So Geralt and Eskel went to the palace. An idea formed in the back of Geralt’s mind as they walked. Given that they were surrounded by guards, there was no place in which to share it with Eskel, so Geralt simply had to hope that Eskel would play along. 

They were ushered onto a balcony where the Duchess stood with her Captain of the Guard, Damien de la Tour. From the beginning he had made it clear that he viewed the hiring of Witchers as an insult to him and his men. He had even openly questioned the Duchess’s decision to her face in a way which Geralt had been shocked to see her tolerate. The Duchess clearly had a great deal of fondness and trust in the man. 

Now Damien rounded on Geralt and Eskel with a look of angry righteousness no one liked to see in an armed man. 

“I was not mistaken,” Damien de la Tour spat. “You two arrived and trouble followed soon after!”

Geralt ignored both the words and the man and focused his attention on the Duchess. Thankfully Eskel followed this lead, standing in waiting silence despite the rude greeting. The Duchess herself stood nearby speaking to some noblewomen. At the sight of Geralt, she excused herself immediately and crossed to them. 

“At last you two have returned! We’ve been on tenterhooks! Did you catch Milton’s killer?”

“We have discovered that the Beast is a vampire,” Geralt declared. “How much do you know of vampires, Your Grace?” A thought occurred to Geralt and he included Damien in the question. “And you as well. What do either of you know of them?”

Damien scoffed at this, and the Duchess narrowed her eyes. “We sent you after a monster and you return with _ nothing? _ We are very disappointed!”

Geralt felt Eskel tense up at his side. But Geralt was used to this sort of treatment from the rich and powerful. 

“This is exactly why I ask how much you understand of the situation. I want to tell you why I don’t have a head to bring you, but I don’t want to insult you by explaining things you already know.”

Damien responded with a sneer. “Pff, is this a problem? Is it too much for a _Witcher_, a monster slayer? Everyone knows how to end a vampire--draw it by trick into sunlight, or arm yourself with ample garlic and drive a stake through its heart!”

While this response was exactly why Geralt had asked, hearing it still made him heave a sigh. The pure irony of it was that the garlic and stakes story had been 'confirmed as true' by Regis himself during their last visit to Toussaint. He had claimed to speak with expert knowledge based on his 'studies on the subject of vampires' and close acquaintance with a Witcher. Since then, the old myth had apparently gained even more traction, and was now accepted as fact rather than the extremely self-referential joke of an actual vampire. 

Eskel leaned subtly into Geralt's shoulder, waiting for his cue. 

“Garlic’s useless against vampires,” Geralt said, steadily holding Damien’s eyes. “Sun and stakes don’t hurt ‘em either. Those methods--pure invention, only work in myths and fables.”

The trick was to tell people both the truth and a lie at the same time. If he told them that the Beast was a _higher_ vampire, he might have to disclose that there was no way for him to kill one, and especially not _ this _ one. But given the sheer number of vampires in Toussaint (far more than in most other places in the world) Geralt did not wish to outright lie about his quarry to those responsible for protecting the people from threats. It was important for them to understand the gravity of the risks they (and thus the Witchers they hired) faced.

But if they did not know the difference between lesser vampires and higher ones, that could work in his and Eskel’s favor. 

“Vampires have a variety of capabilities," Geralt explained. "Some can change their shape to mimic the bodies of humans. Some can fly, or jump great distances. Others can become invisible, or outright turn into mist and thus enter any place they wish undetected. Some have screams which can deafen a man instantly or blast him off his feet--like the Shaelmaar you saw us fight in the arena. Others can use hypnosis to control animals, or even human victims’ minds.” 

As he went on, he saw Damien’s gaze become more focused upon him, while the Duchess stopped her angry pacing and regarded him with shock and dismay. But then Damien seemed to shake himself free of the recitation, sneering once more. 

“Excuses! Your Grace, I shall assemble a battue, bring the matter to its end at once. The Witchers only need to tell us where to find this monster.”

Geralt knew then that he’d led this correctly: they believed that there was only one vampire, one 'Beast of Beauclair,' and moreover knew so little on the subject that they would not be able to either identify or discount _any_ person or creature from being the so-called Beast. 

“No, no,” Eskel interrupted, leaning in, supporting Geralt easily in this now he had some idea of how to play it. “This is work for Witchers, not your guardsmen. The only thing with any chance of stopping a vampire is a silver blade, and sometimes not even that. Leading your men against even a single vampire will only get them killed.”

“Yet when Witchers fail, my guardsmen must step in!” Damien barked, crossing his arms and glaring narrow-eyed at them both. “I’ll take my best: forty hardened veterans! No vampire can stand up to that.”

Truth be told, forty experienced men stood some sort of chance against a single vampire, especially a lesser one like a fleder. But it was still only a chance. People trained to fight against human movements and capabilities, with only human reflexes and skills to protect themselves, could not expect or understand the ways vampires behaved during combat. The men would almost certainly panic if a vampire vanished before their eyes. And panicked men in groups quickly become their own enemies. 

“Forty, fifty, a hundred...against some vampires, that would make no difference," Eskel continued. "And this vampire, the Beast of Beauclair--it’s very, very strong. Old and cunning.”

All of this was true--but it left out the most important parts. 

“You have not seen my guardsmen in action,” Damien insisted, leaning in toward Eskel's face in clear challenge. 

“Can they fight fog? Hit a target that moves faster than the wind?” Eskel asked, now using a conciliatory tone.

“How...what creature can do such things?” the Duchess asked, all agog--which was exactly the response they needed. 

“Where was Milton when he died?” Geralt asked. “The first time the Beast came for him, he was in the middle of the Palace gardens, where every exit was watched by the guardsmen you think stand a chance against this creature. So when the Beast actually killed Milton, where was he?”

At this, Geralt could see that they’d won. Damien looked away. 

“He was in the Palace,” Damien admitted. “He was away from Toussaint searching for you for long enough that there were various business matters which we managed in his absence. He was here taking care of those business matters. His body was discovered in one of the parlors just after noon--splayed out on the ground, wearing the rabbit ears from a costume.”

Geralt couldn’t keep himself from closing his eyes in a moment of silence. Milton had been a kind man, generous, and seemed to truly believe in defending the innocent who could not protect themselves. He had stopped several times along the route to Toussaint to fight bandits and raiders harming the locals. He had also been the one to tell the Duchess about Geralt and Eskel, which meant he was responsible for the gift of their home. For a moment Geralt was overcome with rage and disgust at what Dettlaff had done to a man Geralt had begun to consider a friend. 

And then he let it go, as Witchers so often had to do. 

“This should show you exactly what you’re dealing with,” Geralt pushed on, reminding himself that Dettlaff too was a victim in this. Geralt would not harm one victim in defense of another. “The Beast can infiltrate even the Palace itself in broad daylight, which I assume you guard with your finest men,” he finished, speaking directly to Damien again. “Even we cannot be sure yet what we’re dealing with. Each vampire is different, with different skills and abilities. To be truly prepared, you must anticipate _ all _ the things a vampire might be able to do.”

“Yet all are still brainless beasts!” Damien burst out, clearly unwilling to admit defeat. 

“Dead wrong,” Eskel replied, crossing his arms. “There are some vampires that are no better than animals, ruled by instincts. Attack anything that smells like blood. But there are some vampires that are damn smart. Intelligent, capable of reason and strategy. Why do you think _ this _ one did things intended to humiliate or point out fault in its victims, like stuffing a coin pouch into De la Croix’s mouth, or arranging for Milton to be wearing rabbit ears? Is that what a _ brainless beast _ does?”

All still true, while neglecting to mention the existence of higher vampires which could not be killed by any Witcher, no matter how skilled--or the fact that this particular vampire was already known to them by name. What they were describing could be just a particularly nasty katakan, which was something both Geralt and Eskel had experience in killing. 

“What, then, do you intend to do?” Damien demanded. Which was a fair question. 

“This is way beyond being any other monster,” Geralt said, trying to read the situation to determine his next move. “This is a powerful being that’s walked the world for centuries.”

“Impossible,” Damien spat, waving a hand at this concept as if it were a bothersome fly. But Geralt could see the worry in his eyes now. “If so great is their power, why have they not killed or enslaved us all?”

The memory of Tesham Mutna, with its cells and documentation on bloodletting schedules and breeding advice, filled Geralt’s mind. 

“Most vampires stay out of our way because they don’t care about humans one way or the other.” Also still true; even some katakans lived peaceful lives, drinking from deer and boars and other animals large enough to sustain their predation. And Dettlaff had not wanted to be here in the city. 

Damien seemed to think about this, stroking his mustache and scowling. The Duchess listened all rapt attention and wide eyes, much as she had to Dandelion’s songs, in fact. 

“They do not fear we shall wipe them out one day?” Damien asked.

Truthfully, lesser vampire species were on the decline. They were still extremely dangerous, but centuries of Witchers had so drastically thinned their numbers that few of them were able to find compatible mates in order to have offspring. If what Regis said about Dettlaff’s pack was to be believed, he probably had one of the largest gatherings of lesser vampires on the continent. Most others lived in much smaller packs, usually of three to five, and often not all the individuals were of the same species. 

“They’d probably be pretty amused if you asked them that,” Geralt half-smiled. “They’re well aware of their strength.”

Damien caved at last. “Then what can we do? Do _ you _ have a plan?”

Geralt glanced at Eskel here, trying to wordlessly command him to stay silent. Whether by coincidence or understanding, he did. So Geralt took the final gamble: “The Beast is one of the intelligent ones. That’s why we’ve been searching for days with little to show. This one, our best bet is to talk to him.”

The tiny amount of goodwill Geralt and Eskel had scraped together from Damien evaporated. His lip curled and he made a noise of pure disgust. 

“I cannot believe this! Her Grace summons and rewards two Witchers to kill a monster, and instead they wish to _ chat _ with it!”

“We know what we're doing,” Geralt insisted, now turning his eyes on the Duchess again. Damien might not listen, but he did not have the final control here--the Duchess did. And she was the one with a romantic heart, the one who would gift a vineyard to two aging Witchers in love. “His lover was kidnapped. He’s being blackmailed into killing these knights.”

She took the bait immediately. “Blackmailed?” she asked, the word slow like she was feeling out the concept. “Be so kind as to explain how a _ vampire _ might be blackmailed.”

“As I said, some vampires can mimic humans, make themselves look like us. And some are driven by emotion rather than instinct. Not only are they intelligent to an extreme, they’re emotionally...rich. Capable of feeling many things. Even love.”

The Duchess was barely breathing. She hated the murders as much as Geralt did--she had known every single one of the four dead men, and Milton’s death was fresh and raw, less than two days past. But killing out of desperate, protective love was _exactly_ the sort of tale to capture a Toussaintois heart, and Her Grace Anna Henrietta was nothing if not a paragon of her people. 

“This vampire fell in love with a human, a woman," Geralt finished. "And he’ll do _anything_ to keep her from harm.”

The Duchess seemed to remember herself then, drawing herself up and hardening her features. 

“You surely do not suggest we let Milton’s killer go free? Or _wait_ until it murders again? We must render it harmless as quickly as possible!”

From her wording, Geralt knew he almost had her. ‘Let Milton’s killer go free,’ ‘render it harmless’--she was no longer demanding the Beast’s head delivered to her on a platter. She was thinking of other punishments already.

“That is exactly my aim now, to prevent further attacks,” Geralt concluded. “Vampire’s only half the problem. Blackmailer’s at fault chiefly. Kidnapped the woman to control the vampire--so if we free this innocent woman, we end two injustices at once.”

“So what do you propose to _ do?” _ the Duchess asked. 

“We’ll find the blackmailer, free the vampire’s lover. No one else should die, that’s most important. Soon as the woman’s safe, he’ll have no more reason to kill,” Geralt told her, with total honesty--and then, seeing her look of dismay, added, “And if _ that _ does not work, if for some reason he goes on killing, we will do our best to kill the Beast.”

If it came to that, if all five men died and the Duchess demanded blood, they could find a different species of vampire--a fleder, or better yet a garkain, whose appearance would be guaranteed to disgust and horrify any who beheld it. The Duchess would not need to know that the monster was not in fact the Beast. 

For several agonizing seconds, the Duchess stroked her fine rings and stood with the warm breeze toying with her hair. Then she turned an intent look upon both Geralt and Eskel. 

“I admit to being swayed,” she said at last, and a wash of relief went through Geralt. “You may be right. Do you know anything about the blackmailer?”

Geralt drew out the four papers with the names of the deceased and instructions for how the deaths were to be carried out, and showed them to the Duchess. 

She immediately fixed upon a wine stain which marred the corner of one of the papers. What followed left both Eskel and Geralt stunned. They were both skilled trackers, able to garner useful information from bent branches, trampled grass, and footprints which to other people would be opaque and unreadable. But when it came to wine, they were in the dark--as the Duchess soon demonstrated. She summoned the ducal sommelier, who revealed that the winestain was not from just _ any _ wine, but from a wine so rare and fine that it was made and served _exclusively_ upon the ducal table. Even beyond that, it had not been served recently, and never in any place that there might have been papers on the table. 

Which meant that this wine had been stolen. 

The next day passed in a blur. Geralt was already acquainted with the Duchess’s fixated determination once her interest had been piqued, but Eskel quickly came to respect her for it too. She rode with them to the vineyard to interrogate the overseer there, and quickly had him so cowed that he spilled a juicy story of selling a barrel to a wealthy foreigner. This in turn led them to the information that said wealthy foreigner would be attending a soiree in Beauclair the day after tomorrow. 

Uncovering a theft which technically counted as treason, and tracking the trespass to someone who might be able to supply them with information about the blackmailer, left them all feeling as though they had done something productive rather than helplessly waiting for a fifth corpse. With everyone now far more encouraged and the Duchess soundly on their side, Geralt and Eskel went with no outward complaint to the tailor to be fitted for appropriate clothing for the soiree. And then at last they were released to return home to Corvo Bianco to rest. 

When they arrived, they found both Regis and Dettlaff in their front hall. 


	52. Dettlaff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting to write these scenes for like ~20 chapters or so. As a result I can't even tell if this is any good, because my brain is just full of exclamation points about the whole thing. Hope you like it!

Dismounting in the shed they were currently using as the estate’s stables, Geralt and Eskel unsaddled the horses and brushed them down them side by side. 

“Can’t believe you do this so often, Wolf.”

“Do what?” 

“Work with the high and mighty,” Eskel said, combing burrs out of Skorpion’s tail. 

Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, you’ve taken contracts from lords and ladies before.”

“Not like this.” Eskel shook his head. “Bad enough dealing with forktails and fiends. Mixing with the nobs, it’s...they could have me beheaded on a whim. If they tried I could fight my way out, of course I could, but the guards are just some poor bastards trying to earn a living the same as us. At least I can fight a forktail without feeling guilty.”

Geralt nodded. The same thoughts had occurred to him on many occasions. “Still don’t get how this is any different from the usual jobs, though.”

They finished with the horses. Just as they were about to go to the house, however, Eskel grabbed his arm.

“Look, I--I’m sorry,” he gritted out. When Geralt gave him a puzzled look, Eskel shook his head, fussing over smudges on Geralt’s armor, clearly anxious about something. “Me and Lambert give you all kinds of shit for being mixed up with the gentry. We shouldn’t. Because this contract--this is different.”

“Is it?” Geralt asked, taken off-guard by this. “Sure, the work isn't usually about blackmail and vampires, but--”

“That’s not it.” Eskel seemed to be searching for words. He also looked angry, but not at Geralt. At himself maybe. 

“When it’s just another contract, you’ve got nothing tying you to anything,” Eskel said finally. “If you can’t complete it, you skip town, take the loss, and don’t go back to that area for a while. It doesn’t _ matter _ . But this--” he waved his hands at the stable, where their horses were now happily eating oats supplied by Barnabas-Basil, who really did think of everything, and beyond that the fields of olive trees and new vines. “Anarietta’s hooked us. Tied us to her to make sure we finish! So everything _ matters _ now. We can’t just skip out if it goes bad. So I’m--fuck me, I hate saying this, but I’m scared.” A muscle jumped at the corner of Eskel’s jaw. “It’s been like this for _ you _ all along, hasn’t it? The queens and emperors and whatnot had you on a hook the whole time with Ciri and Yennefer and Dandelion and the others. I knew that, ‘course I did, but I still thought--I didn’t really understand--”

Eskel stared at the ground. He huffed in a way that wasn’t quite a sigh. 

Geralt wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say something, and if so, what it ought to be. Before he could decide, Eskel went on. 

“The one time before now that I accidentally tied myself to a noble family, I avoided all of Caingorn for twenty years.” Eskel shook his head again. “And all that accomplished was to fuck everything up worse! If I’d taken the child like I was supposed to, maybe I’d have a daughter I love like you love Ciri, not...” He gestured at his face, where _ his _ child of surprise had brutalized him in her rage at being abandoned to a life of abuse. 

Geralt moved close, cautious with him as he would be with any dangerous creature. But Eskel allowed the approach. Allowed it too when Geralt pressed their foreheads together and took Eskel’s hands off his hips and into Geralt’s own. 

“If you want to run, we still can,” Geralt told him. It wasn’t what he wanted; he’d only owned Corvo Bianco for a few days, and already he found the prospect of losing it very painful. But he would leave it behind if that was what Eskel asked. 

“No,” Eskel said, squeezing Geralt’s hands. “I don’t want to run. I’m just...” He trailed off.

Witchers weren’t supposed to be afraid.

“Yeah,” Geralt agreed with the unsaid word, because he understood. 

For a time they just stood together. Then Eskel’s stomach rumbled, ending the moment between them. 

“Dinner,” Geralt said decisively, and felt delight in the knowledge that Barnabas-Basil would have arranged something for them. 

As soon as they walked into the house, however, they were confronted by the sight of Regis, who stood speaking to Barnabas-Basil himself. Their conversation cut off at the sight of the Witchers. Regis turned and beamed. 

At his side loomed an extremely handsome man. With his tall slender frame, piercing eyes, and dramatic garb of red brocade and black leather, he drew Geralt’s attention and held it. The man’s gaze, meanwhile, immediately fixed upon Eskel and stayed there. 

“Geralt, Eskel, I hope you don’t mind my presumption in coming here,” Regis began. “Please allow me to introduce--” 

The scent of boot polish reached Geralt’s brain before Regis even completed the introduction. 

“Dettlaff,” Geralt finished for him. “At last we meet.”

Most men would have bowed or greeted Geralt in return, or at least acknowledged this in some way. Dettlaff did neither. He continued to stare openly at Eskel, eyes roving all over his face. 

Eskel glared back. “I know the scars are ugly, but fuck’s sake,” he growled. 

Regis gave a small sigh and laid a hand on Dettlaff’s arm. 

“Many humans consider fixed staring to be rude,” Regis murmured, “especially if they have a feature that might be considered unusual.”

At this Dettlaff finally blinked, looking confused. “I have upset you already,” he said to Eskel, sounding distressed. “I apologize. I should--I apologize to both of you.” He finally seemed to notice Geralt, albeit briefly. “I have made your lives very difficult, have I not?”

He had a deep, rich voice that Geralt could nearly feel in his ribcage. Geralt shivered. Damn, Regis had not prepared him for this at all. The killer vampire they were meant to be saving looked like _ that _in human form?

At this Eskel grew fed up, expression going blank as he turned away toward the bedroom. He tossed his saddlebag down onto the floor by the door. “I’m tired. You three can hash it out.”

“Please wait--” Dettlaff was instantly across the room at Eskel’s side, not even appearing to move. Eskel’s hand went automatically for his sword but Dettlaff anticipated this too, laying a hand on Eskel’s forearm and guiding it back down. 

“Please,” Dettlaff repeated. “I have been waiting to meet you properly.”

Eskel’s eyes narrowed, and Geralt, too, blinked in surprise. 

“Why,” Eskel asked, slow and cautious. 

“Because you are my mate,” Dettlaff replied. 

To Geralt, it seemed as though everyone froze at once. 

For several long seconds, the room was like a painted tableau. Geralt distinctly felt his own heartbeat in the silence. Then Eskel’s head cocked, Regis ducked his chin and lifted a hand to his mouth, and Barnabas-Basil coughed and excused himself to the kitchen, where they all heard him moving around with Marlene, laying out dishes and cutlery for dinner as she finished cooking. 

“This joke is in very poor taste,” Eskel spat, and his scarred lip made his grimace worse. 

But Dettlaff only looked perplexed. “What joke?”

Silence stretched out in the room again. 

Geralt’s thoughts raced--the way Dettlaff had scented them both that first night in the warehouse, his shock and dismay when he’d gotten to Eskel, the way Regis had refused to tell them what he had clearly detected as well, how he’d insisted that Eskel be the one to drink the Resonance potion--it all made sense now. A horrible kind of sense. That first night, in the warehouse, Dettlaff had already been in the grips of a massive panic because the mate who’d abandoned him was in grave danger. Of course he would have rejected the idea that he now had a _ second _ mate whose safety and opinions he had to mind. But if he was here, now, that meant Regis had gotten through to him. 

“You mean it,” Eskel finally said, shifting his weight onto his back foot and squinting at Dettlaff, who was slightly taller than even Eskel himself. “You _ actually _ think I’m your--”

“Now that I am not cutting off my sense of pack, I _ know _ you are my mate,” Dettlaff interrupted. He inhaled deeply through his nose and his eyes fluttered closed as though smelling something absolutely divine. When he opened them again his expression had softened. His hands twitched upward as though he wanted to reach for Eskel and had stopped himself. 

Eskel remained completely blank-faced. 

“Dettlaff,” Regis said gently.

At this, Dettlaff’s eyebrows drew together.“Regis says I should say--that is, please understand that you’re not obligated to me. You owe me nothing. Just because I love you ardently--”

Regis flickered forward to Dettlaff’s side, laying a hand on his shoulder. 

“Dettlaff, we have bigger concerns right now,” Regis said, his tone again very tender. 

Geralt’s ears rang. He couldn’t draw a full breath, as though he were wearing armor several sizes too small. But Regis was right. This meeting was not supposed to be about...whatever this was. 

“We’re trying to find the blackmailers,” he forced himself to say, and then his many years of practice setting aside his feelings kicked in and the words came more readily. “If we’re very lucky, we might have a solid lead in a few days. Can’t make promises though.”

Dettlaff clasped his hands in front of himself. “I do not expect miracles. And anything..._anything _ is better than going on as I have been.”

“Even if we can’t find the blackmailers and another demand arrives?” Geralt pressed. “That occurs, you have to be honest with us. Not just disappear, kill the man, and then come back when you’re done.” 

Dettlaff’s lips curled away from his teeth. They were already longer than human. “I cannot just allow them to hurt--”

“Not asking you to allow anything,” Geralt insisted. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the hell I’d have done in your position either. All I’m asking is that you to _ talk _ to us. Tell us if the instructions arrive, and when, and where. We might be able to track the person who delivers it, or find another clue in some other way. You understand me?”

Dettlaff nodded. Having the full force of his gaze on Geralt, especially while Dettlaff wore a look of agonized relief, left Geralt even more breathless than before. _ Gods _ his eyes were intense. Was he exuding some form of mesmerism all the time?

Regis seemed to understand that they’d stirred the pot enough for one night. “We’ll leave you to your dinner,” he said, curling his arm through Dettlaff’s. “If you need us, we’ll be at my place. Please keep us informed of any new information you come upon?”

Dimly Geralt agreed to this. He saw them to the door, Dettlaff again following Eskel with his eyes as he passed. Once outside, Regis and Dettlaff simply vanished. 

“What the fuck,” Eskel said with real feeling. 

“Explains a lot,” Geralt said. He wanted dinner and a bath and to lie down in the bed he shared with Eskel. He wanted the smell of Eskel’s hair and the feeling of his belly and chest scars under Geralt’s palm. Geralt also wanted Regis back, so Geralt could yell at him for not preparing them for this, and also so he could reassure Geralt of...well, Geralt wasn’t sure what. Something.

“It doesn’t explain anything!” Eskel almost shouted, startling Geralt out of his reverie. “It’s a lie. A trick. They’re trying to manipulate us for some reason.” 

He stormed into the dining room. Barnabas-Basil, having laid out the food, had wisely removed himself and Marlene to somewhere else. Geralt followed after Eskel.

“Don’t think it’s a trick,” Geralt said. 

Eskel merely thumped into one of the seats. 

By the time they’d both eaten, Eskel’s body language had changed. He was slumped against the back of his chair, picking at the remaining food. Lambert would have said he was thinking very loudly. 

Food had soothed Geralt a good deal. The jittery buzzing had left his limbs. So Geralt judged this to be the moment to speak. 

“Regis has been honest with us, and painfully so with me,” he started. “He revealed himself as a vampire to a _ Witcher. _ Kept talking about it even when I was hostile. Told me about his whole history with addiction even though it put him in a bad light. He's not the sort of man for lies or manipulation. So this isn’t a trick--you’re Dettlaff’s mate. Or he’s yours, or something.”

Eskel said nothing, but now there was something besides anger in his face and the way he moved. 

“Was Regis like this with you?” Eskel demanded suddenly. 

Geralt shook his head--and realized all at once that this was part of the knot of feelings within him right now. If _Dettlaff_ was like this, if vampires attached themselves in this way, did that indicate that what Regis felt for Geralt was less serious? Geralt had at last said he loved Regis, and, Geralt now realized, Regis had never quite said it back. Everything about his behavior had indicated he felt the same, but...Was Geralt making a fool of himself with Regis? 

“No,” Geralt said, trying to keep these thoughts from showing in his voice. Now was not the time and Eskel was not the person to bother with any of this. “He’s never mentioned anything of the kind. Maybe only certain vampires react this way. Regis keeps saying every vampire is different.” 

Eskel did not seem comforted. Neither was Geralt. 

Sleeping together that night was much less restful than either of them had hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have very mixed feelings about canon Dettlaff. The game devs gave Dettlaff a variety of autistic characteristics, which I love. But in the game, he's also referred to as "bestial" for these characteristics (gurk), his autism-type traits are stated to be vampiric and thus "nonhuman," and he struggles with human interaction and emotional regulation in ways that are very dangerous to humans. Depending on the outcome you choose in the game, this is presented simultaneously as something disgusting/morally reprehensible about Dettlaff, and, when he actually hurts and kills a lot of people in his rage, somehow also excusable? The devs are weird about it. 
> 
> I adore the idea of a Hot Guy Autistic Vampire. So I'm stealing Dettlaff and doing what I want with him, rather than what the game does with him. I'm trying not to fall into the ableist tropes the game does, but in working within any kind of canon plot framework at all, I may not have been able to avoid it completely. What I can say is that this fic will ultimately diverge sharply from canon events.


	53. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for brief non-lethal animal harm in this chapter.
> 
> Also, for those of you who haven't played the game, or haven't played it recently, if you want to see what a [garkain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuCK08nXq2M) and an [ekkimara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfYA7hY-jCE) look like, there you go. Content warning for gore in the first video, there's a dismembered body lying around.

A haunting cry woke them just before dawn. Sprawled half on top of Eskel, Geralt tensed and felt Eskel do the same. 

Their medallions were trembling. 

Footsteps from padded fleshy feet moved around the doorstep of their house, followed by another long, warbling cry that ended in a clicking hiss. 

Which was then followed by the bleating of a goat. 

They pulled on clothes as silently as they could, each grabbing their silver swords and going toward the door on silent feet. They took up stations on either side of the entrance, counting down silently on their fingers until Eskel thrust the door open. 

Right on the front doorstep sat a mid-sized ekkimara holding a live goat between its knees. It lifted its head at the sight of them, massive ears perking, its tiny shortsighted eyes zeroing in on Eskel. It let out a series of interrogative clicks and then a warble of unmistakable delight. 

Eskel’s left hand tensed into the gesture for Aard, probably planning to blast the creature out of the way so he could get into the open and fight it, but Geralt stopped him with a touch. 

The ekkimara, clearly taking the silence as encouragement, bent down to the goat. It licked at the goat’s shoulder (the goat seemed unimpressed by all this) and then used its razor-sharp teeth to cut open the skin. Blood immediately flowed. 

But instead of drinking it, the ekkimara looked up at Eskel and chittered, nudging the goat toward him. The goat, sensing new horizons to chew upon, ambled into the house, bleeding freely as it went. 

For another second Geralt was torn between keeping an eye on the vampire outside their door and keeping the goat from eating the furnishings and getting blood on everything as it did so. Then Geralt just sighed, since the vampire was clearly not a threat, leaned his sword against the wall, cast Axii on the goat, and led it gently back to the door. 

The ekkimara drooped at the rejection of its gift. It let out an unhappy series of chirps. 

Eyeballing the beast, Geralt nudged Eskel. “It’s trying to court you. Or pay homage to its master’s new love. Gotta thank it.” 

Eskel glared at him, huffed angrily, and then set down his sword as well and approached the ekkimara. 

The vampire perked up again, the ruff of silvery fur along the back of its neck lifting along with its ears. Gingerly, as a bite from those fangs could do very serious damage indeed, and vampire spit kept wounds from clotting, Eskel held out a hand to the beast. But the ekkimara only chittered at Eskel and then butted its bulging forehead-ridges against his palm. 

Half a minute later, it was leaned up against Eskel’s legs with so much of its weight that he had to brace himself against the door to keep from falling over. 

“Have you ever even heard of this happening before?” he asked, and Geralt shook his head. "I thought lesser vampires were universally vicious."

“Dettlaff said he had been trying to cut off his sense of pack, and that he’d stopped,” Geralt said thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard of this, but there can’t be many vampires in the world with Dettlaff’s capabilities, and even fewer that fall in love with humans. Meaning we might actually be the first to see the phenomena of a vampire pack welcoming a new human pack-member.”

“Fucking hell. Don’t say that.”

Five minutes after that, the ekkimara got up of its own accord and left. 

Neither Geralt nor Eskel felt much like going back to bed after that, so they went to the larder and got themselves breakfast. As they ate, they heard more of the ekkimara’s chilling cries echoing across the land from the woods to the southeast. By the time they’d finished, a second and a third voice had joined it in a chorus. 

“I think they’re serenading you,” Geralt grinned, now thoroughly amused. So long as he didn’t have to fight them he had no issue with monsters, and he _especially_ had no issue with teasing Eskel mercilessly for his fanclub. 

Geralt was less amused when several of the local people showed up on their doorstep, panicked by the sounds which they correctly identified as coming from dangerous beasts. As Geralt could not in fact promise that the monsters were of no threat to anyone who _didn’t_ smell like Eskel, he saddled up Roach and rode to the cemetery. 

“Regis?” Geralt called down into the crypt. He could hear noises down there. Now he had arrived, he realized that he could potentially walk in on Regis and Dettlaff in some sort of compromising situation, and the idea made his skin crawl. 

Though the noises from below went silent as soon as he called, several seconds passed before Regis answered. 

“Come in, but slowly. And leave your blades at the door, please.”

Now more worried than ever and unsure if he should comply, Geralt thought for several seconds before unbuckling his sword harness and hiding it behind a sarcophagus. Then he flicked a Quen shield into place and went further into the crypt. 

There he found not only Regis and Dettlaff, but no less than six bruxae, two alps, and a massive garkain. The crypt was very crowded. If the people had been human, the tunnels would have been hot from all the bodies in them. As it was, the crypt was much warmer than usual. 

Dettlaff barely glanced up. He sat in one of Regis’s chairs stroking the neck of the garkain on the floor before him. The beast was so large that even sitting on the floor as it was, its head was higher than Dettlaff’s. The venom sacs on its skull expanded and shrank as it breathed, glowing faintly in the dim room. Its purr was so loud that Geralt could almost feel it in his feet.

The alps and bruxae all regarded Geralt with obvious distrust and dislike. One of them, Geralt realized, was the bruxa he and Eskel had briefly fought at Corvo Bianco. 

Regis stood from his seat on his bed, holding up a hand to Geralt in acknowledgement. “Welcome,” he called. “As you can see, you are not the first to drop by tonight.”

“Today,” Geralt corrected. “It’s nine in the morning.”

This was, Geralt suddenly realized, Dettlaff’s family. Not by birth, but still family in the same way Ciri and Yen and Vesemir were Geralt’s family. Which meant Geralt needed to be careful here--Dettlaff was clearly very powerful if he could call this many vampires together in just a few days. And perhaps just as importantly, Dettlaff was beloved to Regis. Geralt did not want to upset anyone Regis cared about this much. 

The frigid atmosphere in the crypt had not thawed any with Regis’s greeting. A great many eyes watched Geralt with the simultaneously guarded and predatory air of monsters who knew very well what a Witcher was.

Geralt shuffled from foot to foot as he realized what he had to do. He met the eyes of the bruxa who had been hurt and bowed his head to her. 

“I apologize,” he said, “I feel regret that I hurt you, and that my partner hurt you as well. I hope you are recovering well. If there is something you need to aid the recovery, I will help you find it.”

When he lifted his head, he saw her looking at him narrow-eyed. 

“You are polite for a murderer,” she grumbled. 

Dettlaff said something to her in the vampire tongue and she ducked her chin, seeming abashed. 

“I accept your apology," she said after a pause. "I am sorry too. I attacked you. I thought that you would use Dettlaff’s hand to hurt him in some way.”

Several faces turned away from Geralt then, and a cluster of the women murmured among themselves in their language. 

Regis just smiled. “Well, we’re all here together now because Geralt brought me that hand, so. All’s well that ends well.”

Regis beckoned Geralt up out of the crypt again, clearly thinking that they would need to talk. Geralt grabbed his swords on the way out. 

“You’re here, so I assume there’s been some new development,” Regis said, looking worried. But Geralt shook his head. 

“Not with the blackmailer. It’s about...well, it’s about Dettlaff’s pack. There was an ekkimara on our doorstep this morning. It brought Eskel a goat in some sort of welcome-to-the-family gesture. Bled it for us, got it all over the dining room floor. Ever since then, it and some of its friends have been calling out to us from the woods. It’s panicking the locals. I want to be able to tell them that they're not at risk.”

Regis tried and failed to suppress a smile. “Oh dear. Dettlaff will be able to keep them from attacking anyone, at least. It was never an issue where we lived before. The problem is that, well...” Regis met Geralt’s eyes. “Now that Dettlaff is not cutting himself off from us, the way he feels about Eskel is obvious to _ everyone_. The alps, bruxae, and katakans will know better than to harass Eskel, of course, but the less intelligent vampires...others like the ekkimara might come.”

Geralt nodded. They could deal with that. If nothing else, a quick Axii would remove them from the premises, and he could warn the locals to check their livestock for signs of feeding. But Geralt crossed his arms, trying to figure out how to ask what he now wanted to know without giving himself away completely. 

“So he’s really in love with Eskel. Just like that," Geralt said. "Because of, what, the way Eskel smells?”

Regis shrugged. “It’s not something every higher vampire is capable of. I’m certainly not. Because of my bond with Dettlaff, I was able to tell that Eskel was someone Dettlaff could attach himself to. But even for me, Dettlaff’s response to Eskel is a foreign concept.” 

Geralt managed to suppress any sign that this was a relief to hear. He hadn’t wanted to discover that Regis had experienced this with others and did not feel that way toward him. 

“So you just fall in love the plain old human way, do you?” It was as close as Geralt could come to asking _Do you actually love me. _

Perhaps Regis understood. He moved in to press a brief kiss to Geralt’s lips. 

“Some _humans_ fall in love at first sight too. I fall in love rather more slowly, for which I feel grateful.” For a moment Regis smiled, looking at Geralt with his hand on Geralt’s jaw. But then he sobered and withdrew. 

“It’s a double-edged sword. Perhaps I would not feel so lonely and afraid if I could walk through a city and pick out those I could love by scent alone. But right now, Dettlaff feels all the desperate desire for closeness and approval that any new lover might feel, but he has no guarantee whatsoever that Eskel will ever reciprocate. And as far as Dettlaff is concerned, it is a done deal. For as long as Eskel lives, Dettlaff will love him, regardless of how Eskel responds. Just as Dettlaff still loves Rhenawedd even though she's gone. Loving humans has so far brought him a great deal of suffering.” 

When Geralt tried to imagine himself in Dettlaff's position he felt rather nauseated. But the guilty truth was that Geralt wasn’t sure he _ wanted _ to help Dettlaff, at least in this. With the blackmailer, absolutely, that was a moral outrage in every way. But Dettlaff was so handsome, so powerful, and he was obviously _ not _ shy about expressing his affection. If Eskel were to move beyond his Witcher training as Geralt had, be able to accept Dettlaff's attentions, would what Geralt had to offer still be enough to convince Eskel to stay?

An even worse thought occurred to Geralt then: was the way he felt now how he had made _ Eskel _ feel all this time? 

“Eskel is very self-conscious about his face,” Geralt said after a pause, when he could no longer bear himself. “And he values actions over empty promises. He definitely does not like being woken in the night by vampires trying to give him unwanted gifts.”

This got a chuckle from Regis. “I can make no promises that they will stop trying to be kind to him. But you can at least reassure those who come to you that they are at no risk from the creatures. Now, was there anything else you needed?”

Geralt wanted to find some excuse to stay with Regis for just a little longer. Anxiety still lingered under Geralt’s skin. 

“Do you know them well?” he asked, and when Regis gave him a puzzled look, Geralt clarified, “The alps, bruxae, the others in there. I didn’t realize there would be so many of them.”

Regis smiled again. “These are just the ones who were nearby,” he admitted. “More will come. Some of them I have met here and there over the centuries. But most of them, no. When Dettlaff allows himself to be felt, he attracts every vampire for miles. Like moths to a torch, but considerably less dangerous for the so-called moths.”

Geralt remembered the strange brooch Dettlaff wore on his coat, a pretty piece made of gold and glass fashioned in the shape of a large moth. 

“Did you give him that brooch he wears?” Geralt asked. 

Regis shook his head. “No. That was Rhenawedd. He says she used to call him the moth to her flame.”

That was a very strange thing to say to someone you loved, but then, she had abandoned him in the end, so perhaps Geralt shouldn’t have been surprised. 

Soon after, Geralt kissed Regis goodbye and rode back to Corvo Bianco. That afternoon, they returned to the tailor for final adjustments to their garments (which Geralt hated on himself and appreciated on Eskel) and that night they attended the soiree with the Duchess.


	54. Mandragora

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter where I had to condense a huge amount of onscreen in-game events into a few paragraphs. But we have now sharply departed from canon, so I get to do what I want from here on out!

The gathering of Beauclair’s combined artists and nobility was like many others Geralt had attended over the decades. He couldn’t stop adjusting his clothes, which chafed his armpits and neck, and at the same time he felt naked without his armor and swords. The fact that he had no less than three knives secreted around his person did not help him feel any better. And meanwhile, people drunk on fine wine and sometimes high on various other substances milled around creating petty drama amongst themselves and getting in the way of what Geralt and Eskel were there to do. 

As Geralt saw it, there were only two positives to all this: there was food provided in the excessive quantities one only got at feasts hosted by the powerful (enough for even two Witchers to sate themselves upon), and Eskel looked smashing in the brocade doublet that matched Geralt’s own. The Duchess’s tailor had not created the garb with an eye for comfort, which Geralt constantly bemoaned to himself, but it _did_ flatter Eskel’s assets to the highest degree. His muscular backside, thick thighs, and broad shoulders were all on display. Geralt would have found a way to take him into the one of the alcoves to suck him off if they hadn’t been here on a job. 

The downside of this gathering was that it was a masked event--and with a mask covering his full face, Eskel felt comfortable flirting. Geralt coped with his jealousy at seeing the rich and powerful fawning over Eskel by eating more. He left Eskel to it. The man deserved some fun. 

The evening’s gathering ended abruptly and unpleasantly when their target, the man who had helped steal the Ducal wine and whom they had hoped would know the identity of the blackmailer, was found dead. Geralt and Eskel examined the scene and discovered that he had been attempting to steal a very large, very beautiful jewel pendant--which the Duchess quickly revealed to be a Ducal heirloom known as the Heart of Toussaint. 

Thankfully the evening wasn’t for nothing. Their target had on him a knife engraved with the coat of arms of another local lord, which meant they had another potential lead. But the Duchess regarded the jewel and then revealed an even more tremendous piece of information. She believed that the stealing of the Ducal wine, combined with the attempted theft of the Heart of Toussaint, pointed to a potential culprit for the blackmail: her own sister, Sylvia Anna. 

Eskel visibly flinched when the Duchess told them that her sister was yet another woman supposedly cursed by being born under the Black Sun. Supposedly, being born during certain solar eclipses cursed young women to be cruel, bloodthirsty, and able to bring about some sort of apocalypse. But neither Geralt nor Eskel had ever been convinced by this story. They knew better than many how being treated as a freakish monster could mold someone’s outlook upon the world. Those supposedly afflicted by the Curse of the Black Sun were often isolated and targeted for every kind of torment that cruel minds could devise. And the impact this trauma had upon someone born into a position of privilege and shown how much they _ could _ have had if they’d only been born one day later or earlier--well, it didn’t take a curse to see how that could create someone unpleasant. 

Eskel’s own child of surprise, the one who had scarred his face, had been a princess supposedly afflicted with the curse. The woman who had earned Geralt the miserable moniker of 'the Butcher of Blaviken' had been another such princess. 

Sylvia Anna, better known by her nickname Syanna, had fared little better than the other girls born the same day. Pernicious rumors had surrounded her from birth, which the Duchess reported had caused Syanna to feel inferior and furious at the world. She had lashed out at the children of other nobles, sometimes in cruel ways, and been punished severely for it. This had culminated in her exile from Toussaint at the age of twelve. She had taken the Heart of Toussaint with her when she departed, but must have been forced to sell it--which was how it had ended up in the possession of their hostess, apparently. 

“Your mission has gained new import,” the Duchess told them, her expression grave. “Go to the house where this knife came from. See what connection this lord has to our blackmailer. And if you find Syanna there--no matter what she did, you _must not_ harm her in any way.” She leaned her hand upon the table, staring into their eyes, voice shaking with emotion. “You must be _ sure _ no harm comes to her. Even if she is the blackmailer.”

Geralt and Eskel glanced at one another. 

“We can’t guarantee her safety,” Geralt admitted after a pause, thinking of the host of vampires they’d already seen. And those had only been the few already in Toussaint when Dettlaff had reopened his connection with them. Regis had made it sound as though more would come soon enough. “Especially if she’s the one responsible for the blackmail.”

The Duchess drew herself up, eyes hardening. “Witcher, that was not a request!”

A flapping drew Geralt’s attention--which was when he saw a pair of ravens take off from the nearby porch roof. 

He sighed. Possibly that had been a coincidence, but Geralt very much doubted it. He was already well aware of Regis's capacity to control animals, and his particular penchant for using ravens as messengers. Which meant that the contents of this entire conversation were probably already on their way to Regis--and thus Dettlaff.

So Geralt excused himself and Eskel, promising the Duchess to look into the matter as soon as possible. She offered the aid of her guardsmen but Geralt said they would investigate the location first to see if they were needed. They fetched their armor and swords from their saddlebags, donned them, and rode to the cemetery. 

Geralt's suspicions turned out to be correct. 

A herd of vampires awaited them there. Thankfully it was after nightfall, so any human eyes would struggle to see the details of the figures amidst the trees. But to Geralt, the moonlight revealed far, far more vampires now than there had been even that morning. From what he could count, at least six more bruxae and alps had arrived, a whole cluster of ekkimarae (including the one from that morning), and at least five other individuals that were, judging by their ostensibly-human shapes, probably katakans. The massive garkain had brought its entire pack to join Dettlaff's much larger one, which meant four more heads with pulsating venom sacs. Three small fleder and even a large protofleder (something Geralt had previously only seen in illustrations from old Witcher bestiaries) had joined the garkains. All nine lesser vampires huddled together in a group among the gravestones, grooming one another. 

Dettlaff paced furiously amidst the trees. There was no mistaking him for human now. When he caught sight of Eskel he briefly reverted back to human, rather like a child trying to hide evidence of wrongdoing--but only a few seconds passed before he lost control of himself again. Soon after, he misted into invisibility. 

Geralt suppressed a grim smile at this. It was sweet, in a way, to see Dettlaff reacting to Eskel, even if it also made Geralt anxious. Especially right now. 

They dismounted from their horses and Geralt strode over to Regis. 

“Since you’re all out like this, I take it your birds told you the news.”

“Of course. I could only get them to wait for your arrival. Let us all go to Dun Tynne at once,” Regis replied. 

But Geralt shook his head. “If you heard the news, then you also know the problem: if Syanna is there, even if she is involved in the blackmail, even if she is the _ sole _ mastermind of the blackmail all by herself, Dettlaff cannot exact revenge upon her.” He turned to the empty air; he knew Dettlaff was here listening somewhere. “You hear me? You _ must _ let Eskel and I manage her! No matter how you feel!”

A vicious snarl came from nearby and a tree _exploded_. That was the only way Geralt could think to describe what happened. One moment there was an almond tree, and then its crown toppled over and the trunk was a pulverized mess. Rather like what one might expect if someone invisible punched it at inhuman speeds with inhuman strength. This was followed by the shredding of several bushes and the eruption of great hunks of earth as though someone were tearing up the ground by hand.

Regis grimaced. 

“What would you do in his place?” Regis asked. “Wouldn’t you be furious and ready to exact revenge?”

“I would _want_ revenge, yes, but that doesn’t matter: killing the _ Duchess’s sister _ won’t bring any of those four knights back, it won’t make Dettlaff less traumatized, and it won’t remove Rhenawedd’s experience of having been kidnapped,” Geralt bit out. “All it will do is create infinitely more problems. Not just for you, if the Duchess finds out you were involved, but for both myself and Eskel. She is temporarily sympathetic to the idea of a vampire blackmailed into killing for his beloved. But if we bring her the corpse of her sister instead? What do you think she’ll do?”

Dettlaff reappeared right in front of Geralt, fangs and claws fully bared. He appeared wild, _ mad _ with rage--and then he looked at Eskel. 

For a long, horrible moment, Geralt feared he would attack Eskel. But instead Dettlaff sank onto the ground in a crouch, clutching his head, rocking back and forth. Eskel stared wide-eyed as Regis went over and stroked Dettlaff’s nape. In a low voice he said something to Dettlaff in their own tongue. Dettlaff merely moaned, a miserable, tortured sound. 

For several long, fearful seconds, Geralt feared Regis would decide he owed no loyalty to any human. It was too easy to picture the vampires simply vanishing into the night and leaving the two Witchers behind. 

“We will all go together,” Regis said at last. “If the estate is heavily guarded, then you will need backup to fight your way inside. And if it is not, then Dettlaff will have all of us to help him stay calm.”

Geralt nodded. That was the best offer they could expect, now. 

So Geralt and Eskel rode to Dun Tynne surrounded by a seething pack of vampires. Their flickering, shimmering forms easily kept up with the horses. Moonlight glittered on fangs and claws as well as chainmail and silver swords. 

Geralt hoped that the Duchess was wrong in her suspicion. That her sister had nothing to do with this, and the culprit was merely some other person who wanted to play pretend that they were a member of the royal family. But he doubted they would be so lucky.


	55. Syanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: in this chapter vampire mind-control gets used in various ways that are distressing to their recipients, or would be if the recipients were in their right minds. Also this chapter contains mentions of severe past child abuse, including the implication of sexual abuse.

Eskel and Geralt climbed over the estate's back wall, dropping into the courtyard, and found every guard there already asleep. Eskel surveyed the scene with shock, going over to check the bodies for signs of life, and found every single one still breathing.

"Regis's handiwork," Geralt whispered to him, somehow reluctant to break the silence even though he felt certain that the guards would not wake till Regis chose. 

Three bruxae opened the gates for the lesser vampires, who poured in on padded feet. 

Dettlaff manifested at Eskel’s side. 

“She is here,” Dettlaff rumbled, the words warped by his massive teeth. “My Rhena. I can smell her on the air.”

This made no sense to Geralt. They were all the way out in the courtyard. Unless her kidnappers had extremely liberal restrictions upon their captive and allowed her out for regular walks, which was in no way what their letter about torturing her to death had implied, her scent should not be out here. And if she were indoors, in captivity as expected, then Geralt doubted even vampire senses could catch a diffused scent from this far away. 

A glance from Eskel told him that Eskel, too, thought this strange. A prickle of unease went down Geralt’s spine. 

They went into the house, now with a cluster of garkains following happily after Dettlaff.

In the suite of rooms clearly devoted to housing the estate’s master, they found a man in a dressing gown, holding a glass of wine. He matched the description given to them by the Duchess of Dun Tynne's owner, Roderick. 

He looked up as a group of intruders came into the room, clearly about to get indignant, when he caught sight of both Dettlaff and the garkains. The way pure horror suffused the man’s face would have been comical under other circumstances. As it was, Geralt just felt sorry for the man. 

Regis strode forward and suddenly the man's face went slack. He dropped his cup, spilling wine all over the carpet. For a moment Geralt too wavered where he stood, knees weakening--and Regis's mesmerism got a proper grip on the man's mind and Geralt's thoughts cleared. 

“Tell me where to find a foreigner known as the Cintrian,” Regis commanded.

The man gazed adoringly up at Regis and answered. “He is out at a party tonight. I expect him to return in the morning, if you want to see him.” 

“And the hostage, a woman named Rhenawedd, where is she?” Regis crooned, laying a hand on Roderick’s chest. Roderick shivered visibly. It made Geralt sick to watch--he knew that Regis must have often used these powers in his youth to feed upon humans, forcing them to enjoy it even as they bled to death. 

A small crease appeared on Roderick’s brow. “I know of no hostage.” Just when Geralt began to wonder what that could possibly mean, Roderick appeared to have a thought. “My beloved Syanna, she is the one who brought the Cintrian and his men here. She says they are necessary for some plan of hers. I love her, but I do not believe the men are trustworthy. They may have a hostage somewhere.”

The confirmation that Syanna was here brought simultaneous relief and the sense that some doom was settling over them. 

“And Syanna, where will we find her?” Regis inquired. “Does she not sleep here with you?”

“No,” Roderick said a little mournfully. “She values her privacy. Her rooms are in the tower. She is there now.”

“You have done well, thank you,” Regis praised, and Roderick flushed, brown cheeks darkening. His mouth curved into a shy smile. “Now sleep, and when you wake, you will believe all this to be a dream.”

Roderick went limp his chair, head lolling against the plush upholstery. 

“To the tower we go,” Regis proclaimed. He did not meet Geralt’s eyes as he passed. 

Most of the lord’s staff had already gone to bed for the night. But at the staircase leading up to the tower, a trio of guards spotted them. Their eyes went wide, clearly about to call the alarm--and Dettlaff waved a hand. 

Dettlaff lacked Regis’s finesse. The guards collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, thumping to the ground one after another. Geralt just had to hope that their helmets and armor would protect them from any real harm beyond sore muscles from lying in strange positions. 

When they reached the door to the highest level of the tower, Dettlaff stood on the landing. For several seconds he appeared to struggle, clawed hands clenching into fists, and then he forced his face back into human form. Baffled by this, Geralt watched with even greater confusion as Dettlaff ran his hands through his hair and straightened his jacket. 

“She is here,” he whispered, low enough that a human could not overhear. “My Rhena. I can smell her nearby, hear her heartbeat. How do I--do I look human?” he asked, turning anxious eyes on Regis. 

A chill of premonition went over Geralt. Regis nodded, tucking a lock of hair behind Dettlaff's ear, and then Dettlaff opened the door and went inside. Geralt and Eskel and Regis followed after. 

Inside the room a woman sat writing at a desk. At her elbow stood a bottle of wine and an open cup, the particular scent of its vintage entirely too familiar to Geralt’s nose.

When she turned at the sound of the door, they saw a beautiful woman in her forties with streaks of grey in her dark hair. She looked _very_ much like her sister. 

The room was otherwise empty. There was no one else here. 

“Rhena!” Dettlaff gasped.

For a split second her eyes went wide and panicked at the sight of Dettlaff, but then she stood from her chair and ran across the room to him. He wrapped her in an immediate embrace, spinning her around and grinning in pure delight, and before he even had time to put her down he was purring. He buried his face in her hair. 

There was no way this would end well, Geralt thought to himself. He met Eskel’s eyes and saw the same realization reflected there--and then Regis too echoed the same look of dismay. 

Dettlaff put the woman down, grasping her shoulders and looking her over. The purring faded out. “Are you--are you hurt? If any of them--”

“You know me,” she interrupted him, glancing over at the three men in the doorway. “I’d never let them hurt me. I just waited for you to come.”

At this Dettlaff's smile slipped and an actual tear ran down his face. His hands dropped and he withdrew. Gods, this was going to be dreadful. 

“I...I didn’t know where to look,” he told her, voice trembling with emotion. “They threatened to kill you, I--forgive me, I failed you.”

“Dettlaff,” Regis said, and even in the midst of this reunion, his sharp tone got Dettlaff’s attention. “Do you understand who this is?”

Dettlaff glanced between his lovers. “This is Rhena,” he said, a little desperately now. 

“Does this look anything like a prison cell?” Regis demanded. “And the lord of the house told us, under _ compulsion, _ that we would find Syanna here. Syanna, the one who probably orchestrated the blackmail and forced you to kill four men.”

To her credit, her expression of relief at seeing Dettlaff never wavered. She laid a hand on his cheek as he turned huge, searching eyes upon her. 

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” she told him. “You _ know _ me.”

Geralt realized then that she thought Regis was a human. She was probably already planning to demand Dettlaff defend her against them--and a higher vampire could easily destroy even two Witchers and a man. 

“That is the Duchess’s sister,” Eskel said before Geralt could think of what to do. “Dettlaff, you’ve been had. She used you.”

Syanna reached for Dettlaff again. This time he flinched away. 

For a moment the color of his sclera flickered, flooding black before clearing again to white, and then his whole face collapsed into his vampire form. He was too upset to maintain a human shape any longer. 

“No,” he denied, looking to Regis now. “No, tell him it's not true.”

“You want proof?” Regis grimaced. He held up one hand. “Then let us have proof. Syanna--tell us the truth! Why did you do this to Dettlaff?”

Again Geralt flinched as the compulsion rolled over him in a wave and passed just as quickly. Beside him, Eskel gasped. Syanna straightened to her full height, her face settled into a look of determined certainty, and she began to talk. 

“I deserve justice,” she stated. “The four men I ordered him to kill were filth, betrayers of everything for which Toussaint stands.”

“What made them deserve such deaths?” Regis demanded. 

“When my parents exiled me, they ordered those four knights to escort me beyond the Duchy’s borders.” Her expression grew furious, lip curling away from her teeth even despite the mesmerism. “All did so without uttering a single word in my defense. And though their orders were only to ensure my departure, Crespi beat me unconscious with a horsewhip after my first attempt to escape. And Du Lac denied me food for almost a week and took pleasure in eating in front of me.”

Dettlaff flinched. “What of Louis de la Croix,” he asked, his tone pleading. “He was my friend, he was a kind man, he--”

“He found other ways to amuse himself with a girl who would not be missed,” Syanna spat. 

Dettlaff collapsed onto his knees, hiding his face in his hands. 

“And the fourth, Milton de Peyrac-Peyran?” Geralt demanded. He thought he already knew, but he had thought of the man as a friend. Geralt needed to be sure.

“He watched,” Syanna said simply. 

“Release her,” Dettlaff murmured, muffled behind his hands. “Please--”

With another twitch of his arm Regis complied. Syanna blinked, returning to herself, and then glared at Regis.

“Heard enough, have you? Don’t you want to force me to relive the whole miserable thing, give you _all_ the gory details?” 

Regis actually looked away, abashed. 

Syanna knelt before Dettlaff then, taking his wrists and pulling them down until she could see his inhuman face. “I told you: you _ know me. _ Better than almost anyone else ever has. When I have I ever asked you to do anything for which I did not have a good reason?”

Dettlaff said nothing to this. For several seconds he let out a low, miserable keening, rocking himself himself back and forth, before he gulped and seemed to get himself under control.

A group of bruxae appeared behind Eskel in the doorway, peering around him in deep concern. He shuffled awkwardly away from them. 

“Why didn’t you just tell me,” Dettlaff begged, arms limp in Syanna's grasp. His voice broke between his human range and his much more gravelly natural register. “If I had known, I would have--I might have--”

“Might have killed them for me without being forced?” She stood, dropping his hands and shaking her head. “Please, Dettlaff. You’re much too gentle for that. I needed a monster, and you’ve never been one of those.”

Before she or anyone else could speak further, Eskel stepped forward.

“Who is the fifth man?” 

It took Geralt a moment to understand what Eskel meant, and then he waited for the answer with bated breath. Syanna’s face went blank. 

“The fifth man you were going to have Dettlaff kill,” Eskel pressed. “Is there some other knight who deserved it? Or was it going to be your _ sister?” _

For what felt like a long time but was only a few seconds Syanna stood, staring Eskel down, no doubt wondering who this scarred Witcher could possibly be to speak to her in this way. Then she dropped her gaze. 

“I had not decided,” she admitted at last, and Geralt thought she looked very tired. “I confess, that was my intent when I wrote the initial letter to Dettlaff. It was Anarietta’s fault I was exiled, after all. When I was twelve she played a prank on a visiting official, and when it became a diplomatic incident, blamed me for it. It was the final straw for our parents. But...” Syanna bit her lip, and Geralt could not tell if it was an act or real emotion. “But she is still my sister. Some days, I had thought perhaps I would stage my own rescue soon, and thus avoid having to bring myself to that point.”

She crossed to the window, and none of them stopped her as she stood and looked out upon the lands that, under different circumstances, would have been hers.

Regis crouched at Dettlaff’s side, murmuring to him in their tongue. After a moment they both simply disappeared. The bruxae followed after. 

When Syanna had seen her fill of Toussaint, she moved to stand directly before Geralt and Eskel, regarding them with cool interest. Perhaps she was cataloguing their features for further assassinations. She did not even blink at the disappearance of the vampires.

“So. You know who I am and what I’ve done. What is to become of me?”

This, at least, was finally straightforward. “The Duchess asked that you be returned safely to her at all costs,” Geralt told her. “But I will be informing her of your role in all this--and your plans to have her killed, however tentative. What she does after that is her decision.”

Syanna merely nodded. She followed them downstairs without further protest. She even marched past the ranks of furious vampires while expressionless and with every appearance of calm.

Perhaps she had already met Dettlaff’s family and knew that without his command, they were no greater a threat than Dettlaff himself. 

Eskel found a horse for her in the stables and together the three of them rode out of the estate. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm apparently unusual in that I equally like, enjoy, and sympathize with all the main characters in the Blood & Wine DLC: Regis, Dettlaff, Duchess Anarietta, AND Syanna. Most people who play it seem to either hate Dettlaff or hate Syanna. I guess I understand that, but I find them all sympathetic right up to the point in the plot where the devs throw Dettlaff's characterization into the garbage for the sake of conflict. And since I've just rewritten that out of existence in this fic, that means I can go on liking and being interested in everybody while ignoring the canon events of the game. I strongly believe this is how this scene SHOULD have gone if the devs hadn't felt the need to add another ton of levels and boss fights.
> 
> Also I HATE how the game devs de-aged both Anarietta and Syanna to make them 'sexier'. They're both at least 40 years old by the time the events of this game take place. Let women be over thirty, dammit!


	56. Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an interesting challenge trying to both incorporate the bits of canon dialog and characterization that I like while throwing away all the stuff that pisses me off. I think I mostly managed it in this chapter? Kinda?
> 
> I find Syanna fascinating. Now there's an antagonist who intrigues me.

It could not be said that they rode together in silence. The horses’ hooves clopped against the packed dirt of the roads, the Witchers’ armor clicked and jingled, the contents of their saddlebags jostled and creaked and thumped. All three of them breathed. But for more than half a mile, none of them spoke.

“I find myself wondering if you’re just horribly discreet, or if those mutations completely scrubbed away your curiosity,” Syanna said at last.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Geralt kept catching sight of vampire faces. Which meant that even if Dettlaff had not sent them, the trio had an escort to ensure that Syanna arrived in Beauclair as promised. Or maybe they were just nosy. 

“What do you mean?” Eskel replied to her. 

“This contract of yours has not turned out how you expected,” Syanna told them both. “In place of the Beast of Beauclair you found a lost princess. Are you really not interested in what happened, what became of me after they cast me out?”

Eskel grimaced. “Think you’ve already had to say enough.”

She snorted. “True, yet here I am offering to tell you more. Now will you be a boor and refuse a lady what might be her final request, or do I have to do all the work myself?”

“Seriously doubt the Duchess will execute you,” Geralt sighed. Trouble was, he did feel curious. Why _had_ she used Dettlaff to do this when a common assassin would have sufficed?

As soon as he thought that, he realized he _ did _ want to hear more. She was Dettlaff’s first human mate, and if Geralt wanted to tie himself to Regis, he had to tie himself to Dettlaff too--and thus even Syanna. And if Eskel and Dettlaff ever managed to become anything more than awkward, then it became even more important to understand the situation. 

“Fine, I’ll bite,” Geralt said. “Tell us what happened after your exile.”

He watched Syanna to see how she’d respond to this. Whether she knew Witchers could see in the dark or not was uncertain, so her responses might have been a performance for their benefit, or they might have been her true ones, given in ignorance of their awareness. Either way, she smiled at Geralt's offer. 

“Well the noble knights of Toussaint had already demonstrated what would happen to me if I ran, so we didn’t stop until we reached the Caed Dhu wilderness. They left me there alone, without a copper, in a torn lace dress. Right when the frosts were setting in. They assumed something would eat me. Or I’d do everyone a favor and die of hunger. But as always, I failed to live up to expectations.” Now her expression was bitter, furious. “I wandered the woods for a week. Got frostbite from cold, tried eating anything I could get my hands on and made myself sick with half of it. Finally I saw a light among the trees--a campsite. They were bandits: bearded, drunk, spattered with blood. I was sure they’d kill me or rape me, or both.”

“Did they?” Geralt prompted. 

“No. That’s when I learned a robber and a murderer can be a better man than a knight in shining armor. _ They _ took pity on me, because _ they _ understood that I was a child who had nothing they wanted, and furthermore, that I deserved care.” 

“What then?” Geralt said, continuing to play his part. How often had she gotten to tell anyone this, he wondered? Had there ever been an opportunity? “How’d you go from a lost girl in the woods to...this? Whatever you’d call this.”

“How do you think? The bandits adopted me, and with my education and training, I eventually became their leader. We robbed nobles up and down the roads of Nilfgaard for years, until finally Imperial forces caught them. Most of them died.”

“And you?” Geralt asked. Eskel narrowed his eyes at Geralt, clearly wondering why Geralt was allowing this. 

“I realized that the open road which gave us the ability to ambush also allowed others to ambush us in return. So I took the survivors and moved into a city. We learned how to pick pockets, break into houses, and steal from carts. We lived comfortably for a time.”

“Should’ve stayed there, maybe,” Geralt said, thoughtful now. 

“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Perhaps I should have forgotten everything, started a new life. I almost did, several times.”

“Been through a lot,” Geralt said peaceably. 

“I have. And throughout this time, my _sister_ was stomping grapes and shagging minstrels on down bedding.”

“_She _ wasn’t the one to banish you,” Eskel snapped, interrupting the reverie.

“And I’m not angry at her for that,” Syanna answered, easy as anything. “I’m angry at her because she forgot about me. She became Duchess and did nothing for me--she never made any serious effort to find me, or to own up to what she did. If she felt guilt, if she felt shame, why not do something serious to remedy the mistake?”

Eskel scoffed at this. “Too prideful to stop her own mistakes even when she’s hurting someone who doesn't deserve it--have a lot in common, you two.”

At this Syanna fell silent. But Geralt found that his curiosity, which she had wondered if he could even feel, was not yet sated. 

“So why’d you cosy up to a vampire?”

She turned her head to regard him then. He could see from the way her eyes didn’t quite fix on his own that it was too dark for her to read his expression. Probably that made her angry--it was harder to manipulate someone you couldn’t read.

For a few long moments he thought that she'd dried up, was done talking for the night, but then she sighed. 

“It is a maddening thing, being raised to venerate the chivalric virtues above all else while constantly being told how worthless and terrible you are,” she began. “In my youth I wavered. I wondered if the fault truly lay with me and I thus deserved the punishment. But now I think that even if I had been a perfect embodiment of virtue they would have hated me anyway.”

Eskel let out an impatient grumble, which surprised Geralt. He wouldn’t have expected Eskel to be this outraged on Dettlaff’s behalf. Geralt was the one who always got too involved, too emotionally invested. Did this mean that Eskel was starting to think of Dettlaff in a new way? A flicker of mixed pride and unease went through Geralt at that.

Syanna went on as if Eskel had made no sound. “As for Dettlaff...well you’ve met him. A creature who cannot die knows little enough of valor, for that requires the possibility of sacrifice. And he has even less in the way of wisdom. But the other three virtues--honor, generosity, and compassion--he truly lives them. Not for performance’s sake, like so many at court, but because that is simply how he is.”

“So why didn’t you tell him about your past? About who you really were? If he’s as good as you say, it's not like you had anything to fear,” Geralt pushed. 

She didn’t answer him, not really. “At first I was simply intrigued by him. It was like a fairy tale, as nothing in my life had been. Love at first sight, the beauty and the beast. I felt...young again.”

Geralt let her avoid the question. “How’d you meet?”

“It was in Metinna. I’d gone there to sell goods to a fence I know. We were hashing out the terms when in walked Dettlaff. He looked like a mad beggar, wearing ragged clothes only just holding together through clever patching. Yet he smelled sweet, and he’d come to sell a gold candlestick--a beautiful, heavy thing that must have been more than a hundred years old. And he kept _ staring _ at me like he’d seen a ghost. I had never seen a man so frightened by me when I wasn’t planning to gut him.” She smiled a private smile, as if delighted by this memory. “Then the color of his eyes changed, just for a second, and I became determined to know more. So I followed him out, observed him from a distance. But he caught on quickly.”

“Yeah...superhuman senses will do that,” Geralt agreed. 

“He turned down a blind alley, I followed. And then I saw him just disappear.” Now she actually grinned. “I found out later that he was so panicked by his interest in me that he ran away. I had to go back to the fence, pay the man to tell me about Dettlaff. Turned out he came in frequently with strange artifacts he never had any notion of the right value for. The fence had been robbing him blind for years, paying him a pittance for the items he delivered. So I left a message for Dettlaff there, with an address where he could find me.”

“Take it he found his bravery eventually.”

She laughed. “No. I think he planned to follow me around from a distance like a kicked dog. In the end I had to watch the fence’s shop and corner him there. When I finally caught him, I demanded that he come to my place for dinner.”

“And when you found out he was a vampire?” 

She shrugged. “I already knew he wasn’t human. And the more I talked to him, the more I understood that I was the monster, not him.”

“A higher vampire and you were unimpressed? Don’t know if that’s brave or just plain foolish,” Eskel grumbled, ignoring her self-recrimination. 

“I’ve always had a way with ostensibly-dangerous quiet types.” And she raised her eyebrows at them both. Eskel grimaced. She _ had _ gotten them all talking, hadn’t she? 

But Eskel asked the next question. “So what then? How did you go from tracking him down to leaving him behind, and then using him as a tool?”

Syanna sighed. “It grows painful, after a while, being loved so wildly and unconditionally. And to _ return _ such a feeling--anyone would be hard-pressed, let alone someone like me. I had killed men for coin and felt little enough guilt, but _ him_...his love began to make me feel truly wicked.”

“So you up and disappeared, left him with no word,” Eskel said, in a low tone Geralt immediately recognized as angry.

She didn’t know Eskel as well, but she seemed to catch his intention too. “There was no other way. Saying ‘I don’t deserve you’ or ‘Let’s just be friends’--even if Dettlaff could be made to understand why I felt that way, which he could not, that is not how he works. He is forever!” Her voice trailed off, the final two words much smaller. “Always, unchanging.”

But Geralt shook his head at this. “Vampires can change much more than you think. If nothing else, I bet you’ve managed to change him _ now.” _

At this she sent him a pitying look. “No. You don’t know him as I do. You forced the issue, made me be honest, so he will still love me even after this. Even now I have finally _ shown _ him why I don’t deserve him, he will work his mind into knots and convince himself it is fine. Which is why I removed myself from him to begin with.”

This time Eskel made a noise of unmistakable disgust. “Do you want congratulations on your self-restraint? If you’d stayed away, I would’ve said good job you, doing a hard thing because it was right. But then you _ used _ him in your quest for revenge. There are other hired killers who could’ve happily done the job!”

That was the crux of it, wasn't it. Geralt wondered if now they would see her become vicious. But her expression became almost serene, as if this had settled something for her. 

“I would have thought that a Witcher, of all people, would understand. The world spits on you too. People treat you as lepers even as they demand service of you! So you _ must _ understand what that does to a person, how that twists you up inside. If you tell me that you have never wished to make someone _ suffer _ because their life has been so easy compared to yours,never wanted to _ force _ them to understand you...if you can be hurt so much and never wish to hurt back, I must conclude that there is truth after all in the tales of Witchers as emotionless husks.”

Geralt remembered Eskel’s mixed anger and desperation at _him_ for not understanding what Eskel had been through. Geralt remembered the game he and Eskel had played in Kaer Morhen, in which Eskel made him suffer and wait. But that had been just a game, and one they both chose and enjoyed. Nothing like what Syanna had done to Dettlaff. 

Eskel remained silent. Perhaps he was thinking of it too, or other worse things he had been too ashamed to admit even to Geralt. So Geralt spoke. 

“Sure, I’ve had that wish. Nursing a fantasy like that feels good. But to take it to this extreme--and not to someone who deserved it, but to someone who _ loved _ you...no. I don’t understand that at all. And that has nothing to do with me being a Witcher.”

For a moment he saw her jaw tense. But she was very good at pretending, because even now, in the dark, she smoothed it away quickly. 

“I hope Witchers are able to feel gratitude,” she said at last. “Blessed are those who cannot understand this.”

For a while all three of them retreated into the non-silence of the ride once more. The horses’ hooves on the ground, the jingle of their gear, their breathing in the cool summer night. 

“Doubt we would’ve figured you out if you hadn’t tried to get that special wine and your special jewel.” Eskel remarked at last. “Know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” Syanna acknowledged. “And I regret nothing. One lives but once, and this life has already been so ruined that little I can do would make it worse.”

“Oh come on, you _know_ that’s bullshit!” Eskel cried. “What happened to you was disgusting. Fine, so you kill those men. Hell, Geralt here is such a bleeding heart that depending on how you approached him, _ he’d _ have done it for you.” 

Geralt thought about trying to argue with this, but he knew it was true. So he merely sighed. 

Eske went on, “Your life _ wasn’t _ ruined forever, and you _ did _ make it worse. You could have stopped where you were!” He threw out his arm, gesturing behind them. “Roderick is in love with you! He’s an idiot, I’ll grant you--he let you use his place to host treasonous mercenaries and he didn’t even know. But fuck’s sake. You don’t just want _ a _ good life, you want _ the _ good life: the one your sister has. And I’m sure you believe some bullshit about how it’s your _right_, your _due_. Whatever.”

Geralt expected her to interrupt, to try to twist this some other way, but she simply gripped her reins and rode quietly at Eskel’s side. And Eskel, who was normally so reserved with strangers, went on. 

“We’ll deliver you to your sister. And _she_ will probably find some way to forgive you too, just like you say Dettlaff will, even though you killed her friends. So maybe try something new this time: _don’t fuck it up.”_

She sneered. “Ah, so the truth comes out: Witchers are not unfeeling, they are instead pathetic and maudlin. You really want a happy ending, don’t you? With all of us living happily ever after. Where’s the justice in that?”

Perhaps Eskel would have had some response to this, but Geralt found himself unable to sit silent now. 

“Some would argue the just thing would be for us to have killed you when we found out what you’d done,” he growled. “Justice is complicated sometimes. What you did was disgusting. What was _done_ to you was disgusting! But so long as both things _ stay done, _ so long as they don’t get repeated, then the only real justice is to move on.”

This time nobody spoke again.

Geralt thought of Vesemir, who had been involved in the torture and death of so many children, and who had also raised so many with firm attention and even love. Geralt thought too of the monsters that would have rampaged through human lives if no Witchers had been made--and the monsters which _ had _ done so because a Witcher had been mistreated by those asking for help. He thought of monsters who reformed their ways, like Regis, and those who hadn't, like Gaetan and Radovid and Jad Karadin. Geralt thought of those who would call for _his_ death if they knew what he had done. 

Just as they passed over a bridge and the horses moved from loud cobblestones to much quieter dirt paths, both Eskel and Geralt lifted their heads at a sound in the distance: a large force of mounted riders approaching at speed. Syanna noticed nothing, but the Witchers both listened with interest as the noise approached and gained more details. 

“Think the Duchess got impatient,” Eskel observed. “Or decided she didn’t trust us after all. Bet you anything that's Damien with his men.”

Syanna straightened in her seat. She drew in a shaky breath. 

It seemed that they would get to see how this tale ended sooner than anticipated. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I've noticed there's been a drop in comments/response lately. Again, I'm writing this for me, and nobody owes me anything. But it is a little disheartening to post a chapter I'm proud of and then get relatively few comments on it. So if you have the time/ability, I'd really appreciate if you left some words!


	57. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: this chapter contains mentions of past disordered eating and more past child abuse. 
> 
> This is one of those scenes where canon had some really good lines but delivered them in the wrong way by the wrong person. So I've reappropriated the good stuff and moved it around.

Eventually the men heard other horses on the road and called out, raising their torches aloft. There were at least forty men, Geralt estimated, all armed and armored--and in their midst rode the Duchess herself. 

Geralt raised his eyebrows at this. Eskel had been more right than he’d know, the Duchess _ had _ gotten impatient. 

“Whoever you are, announce yourself!” shouted Damien de la Tour. 

Geralt called back, “Geralt of Rivia and Eskel, with a prisoner for the Duchess.”

A murmur went through the host, questions about who the prisoner might be. Several theorized that it was the Beast himself, others thought it might be the lord of Dun Tynne. 

Geralt cast Axii upon Syanna’s horse just in case she decided now was the moment to run. But she made no move to escape, sitting straight and tall in the saddle as they rode together into the torchlight. 

“Hello, little sister,” Syanna said with a cold smile. “It has been a very long time, has it not?”

A collective gasp went through the men, and the Duchess let out a startled noise she probably would have been embarrassed by under other circumstances. 

“Syanna! It’s true, it’s you!” the Duchess cried, directing her horse to the front. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

The guards halted, looking to Damien for instructions. But when the Duchess dismounted and ran toward her sister, Damien merely followed her. 

Geralt followed suit, dropping onto the ground beside Roach, and when the Duchess approached Syanna’s horse, he moved between them. The Duchess tried to push him aside but he held out his arm to halt her. Damien gave him a look of relief, but the Duchess glared daggers at Geralt. 

“What is the meaning of this obstruction?” she demanded, furious. “You will move out of my way!”

Geralt held his ground, blocking her and keeping Syanna’s horse tightly controlled as well. 

“I have no desire to keep you from your sister. But you must have all the information before this proceeds,” he said simply. He wasn’t sure the Duchess would wish him to announce Syanna’s treason before all these men. “I advise we all ride back to the Palace together. Everything can be explained there.”

“If there is not a good reason for this, I will have you flogged,” the Duchess hissed. But this was rather gentle as Anarietta’s threats went, so Geralt considered it a sign that she was happy to see her sister returned in apparent good health. 

Grudgingly the Duchess settled herself back into her saddle. The rest of the trip to the palace passed in laden wordlessness. 

Once there, the Duchess marched herself, Damien, Geralt, Eskel, and Syanna into one of the sitting rooms immediately before rounding on Geralt with bright, furious eyes. 

“Explain yourself, Witcher!” she commanded. “Is that my sister, or is it some vampire imposter?”

This possibility had not even occurred to Geralt, but it mattered little, so he ignored it. 

“You remember how we spoke of a blackmailer kidnapping a vampire’s lover and holding her as a hostage to control him,” Geralt began. “And you remember how it was you yourself who theorized that your sister might be involved in the blackmail. Turns out she is more than just involved--she is both the vampire’s lover _ and _ his blackmailer. She staged her own kidnapping to manipulate him into committing the murders for her.”

Syanna sent Geralt an irritated look, as though this announcement of her misdeeds were a mere faux pas, while the Duchess stared at him agog. She appeared to be unable to decide whether to be shocked at the information or enraged at him for sharing it. 

Both women seemed as though they might speak, so Geralt continued before they could. 

“It's worse than just that,” he said, now staring directly into the Duchess’s eyes. “Syanna meant the vampire to kill a fifth target--you.”

Damien started forward, clearly now seeing Syanna as a threat to the Duchess and wanting to position himself between them. But Anarietta’s nostrils flared and the tendons of her neck lept as she stiffened. 

“You accuse my sister of highest treason,” she said, the words slow and terrible. “How _ dare _ you. You slander her with your vile words--”

“Such concern on my behalf. I’m surprised,” Syanna interrupted. “I wonder, is there an ounce of truth in it?”

This stopped the Duchess better than anything Geralt himself could have said. She stared at her sister in astonishment. Her next words came haltingly, in a shakier voice.

“You...you feel resentment. I understand. But I promise--_ promise _ that we shall work through all the unfortunate matters of the past. Once all this--” the Duchess waved a hand to indicate some part of the situation, possibly her own planned assassination, “--is resolved.” She turned to Damien. “Roderick of Dun Tynne is to be brought to trial for treason and blackmail!”

This time Eskel stepped forward. “Roderick was duped and used. Just like the vampire,” he stated. “His only crime is being an idiot who didn’t understand what his lover--also Syanna--was doing under his own roof.”

“You accuse our sister of yet more wrongdoing!” the Duchess shrilled, panic now evident in her eyes. Syanna watched her with interest, like one studying a pinned insect as it wriggled and died. “This affront to our name shall not go unchallenged!”

“Oh _please,”_ Syanna cut in again with a sarcastic lilt. “As _ if _ Roderick could hope to be clever enough to commit treason, or brave enough to confront a vampire.”

Anarietta stood in stunned silence.

At this point Eskel cleared his throat pointedly, and when Syanna turned to look at him, glared at her. She rolled her eyes at him. 

“Oh, very well,” she sighed, sounding put-upon. “Since they will summon one of their vampires to force me into honesty again if I do not say it myself, I confess: I meant for our reunion to go rather differently than this. But for what it is worth, I planned for you to be dead _ before _ my lovely assassin tore your heart out. And I still intended to give you a proper state funeral even once the populace had concluded that your death was a fitting reward for your heartlessness.”

The Duchess let out a small, shocked noise from the back of her throat. Her eyes went wide and disbelieving, while Damien de la Tour stood at the Duchess’s elbow, glowering furiously. His lips clenched and his mustache bristled. He looked as though he might burst from sheer protectiveness.

“You cannot possibly mean that,” the Duchess pleaded, all righteousness gone from her words now. “Why would you...how _ could _ you want such a thing?”

Syanna gave her sister a pitying look. “For such an accomplished navigator of the court to ask such an obvious question. Come now, Anarietta. Why do you _ think?” _

Geralt had to admit, he was impressed. For Syanna to turn even her own confession of treason into a tactic of control like this was a display of unparalleled skill at manipulation. Now she was being forced to admit failure, Syanna clearly meant to burn her sister’s pride down in the process. 

Anarietta glanced at Geralt and Eskel, desperate and miserable, as if begging them to say this woman before her was some sort of monstrous hoax as she had initially thought. 

“I...I acted dishonorably to you,” Anarietta admitted at last. “I allowed you to take the blame which should have been mine. I allowed them to banish you.”

But Syanna only scoffed at this, grasping her hands behind her back and standing proud on both feet. 

“Please, do not pretend that this is all you have done,” she snapped. “You were a child. What were you to do? At eleven, were you to rebel, organize a coup? Steal our father’s seal and forge a pardon? No. Your behavior then disgusts me but it is not what is unforgivable.” Syanna strode toward her sister but both Eskel and Damien interceded, stepping between them. So Syanna halted, eyes blazing as she finished. 

“I have often wondered if even then you were motivated by ambition,” she continued. “You knew that if I were forcibly exiled, the throne would be yours even though I was elder! But even if that was the case I could understand. Siblings often compete, wanting power was natural for us, and you were still a child. But what I don’t understand--” she moved forward again, just outside of the range where Damien would stop her by force, and pointed at Anarietta. “If you loved me so, why did you wash your hands of me even _ after _ you took the throne? When our parents were dead and you held all the power, why did you _ forget _ me?”

Anarietta covered her face with her hands--and it was so much like Dettlaff earlier in the same evening that Geralt felt dizzy with deja vu. After only a second Anarietta remembered herself, remembered that she was the Duchess of Toussaint, and yanked her hands down to her sides. She turned away and dragged in a deep breath to calm herself. 

Even so, her voice shook when she spoke again. “It was not from lack of care,” she murmured. “Perhaps you may never believe me now. But I forgot--I _ made _ myself forget--because it was the only way I could handle the pain.” A horrible, animal noise escaped her throat as she swallowed a sob. 

Geralt had rarely seen a man look as stressed as Damien in that moment. He was clearly torn between his need to watch Syanna like a hawk and to offer some comfort to his beloved Duchess. 

“The weeks after they took you away I had screaming nightmares every night--and you were no longer there to comfort me,” Anarietta continued. “After a few days I stopped sleeping altogether. Food turned to ash in my mouth until I stopped eating too. Within a month I was delirious.” 

From the horrified look on Damien’s face, he hadn’t known about any of this. 

Syanna’s eyes narrowed as the recitation continued, head cocking to one side. The leather of her gloves creaked as she clenched her fists. It was only just audible at the edge of Witcher hearing.

Anarietta clutched her hands to her belly. “Four months later, when I was barely alive anymore, they called in physicians. They force-fed me, and beat me when I did not comply. At that, finally a kind of numbness descended over me. I told myself that none of this had ever happened, that I’d never _had_ a sister--and it was such a relief that I clung to it.”

“For _ thirty years?” _ Syanna demanded then, pitiless. “You may tell yourself that lie and believe it, but it won’t work on me. You never even tried to find me!”

Anarietta spun, now staring at her sister in fury. “That’s not true! I searched for you, sent out knights to find you, used spies to gather tidings--you did not wish to be found!”

“And how many of those knights and spies were the same ones who had been loyal to our parents?” Syanna demanded. “How many of them quietly approved of my exile or even called for it themselves? Do you really think _ their _ efforts and _ their _ intelligence could possibly be trustworthy? There is a reason I evaded all your attempts to find news of me, and it is because every single effort you made used the same kinds of people who broke me!” She flung her arm out in a gesture at Eskel now. “The whole time there were honorable men from outside the court you could have used. Witchers like him, or even that daft bard you so famously slept with! But instead you were loyal to the Court, loyal to the pretty cage our parents built, rather than being loyal to _ me.” _ She shook her head. “Probably even now, you see me as wild and unjust for killing those four knights. But even these Witchers, who dislike me, will tell you now that I had cause.”

Anarietta looked to Geralt, wringing her hands and panting for air. Geralt did not wish to get involved in this conversation, but he could not now remove himself from it. 

“She speaks the truth,” he confirmed, “at least about her reasons for killing the knights. She was interrogated under vampiric compulsion, which enforced her honesty, and disclosed that each of those men either personally tortured her as a child or stood by as it happened.”

Anarietta raised her fingertips to her mouth as though nauseated. Damien hovered uncomfortably by her side. 

“You are right,” Anarietta admitted at last, which surprised Geralt. Eskel glanced at him, eyebrows raised, and they shared a moment of mutual understanding. Anarietta’s lashes fluttered closed. “I was loyal to those who deserved no such honor. I was afraid of being treated as you were. My whole life I have seen what they did to you, heard what they said about you. I feared that if I spoke out, I would not be allowed to ascend to the throne either--and once I was here, that if I removed everyone who had been cruel to you, that they would find excuses to remove me as well. But I should have been braver. In the light of--I can only hope--”

“Get to the point,” Syanna bit out. “It is very late, and I am tired. Today I have been interrogated by vampires, apprehended by Witchers, and now faced the source of a lifetime of betrayal. If you mean to have me put to death, then do me the courtesy of telling me now so that I may prepare myself.”

Finally Damien found his moment to intervene. “Your Grace,” he began, reaching a hand out to support the Duchess, who looked very wobbly. Geralt imagined her corset was not helping the intensity of her emotional state right now. She accepted the offer, grasping at Damien's leather-clad arm. “While I cannot agree with the phrasing, Sylvia Anna’s point about the late hour holds some truth. This is no time to make decisions. Further, this not merely a personal matter between the two of you. It is a grave matter of state and not to be decided by you alone. A trial must await your sister, at a minimum for the murder by blackmail of four knights. Whatever their sins in private, they were beloved public figures. Your subjects will demand justice.”

Anarietta blinked muzzily, looking first at Syanna and then up at Damien. The way he gently cupped her small hand in his much larger one raised some questions about the true nature of their relationship, but that was none of Geralt’s business. 

Things moved quickly after that. Damien called for guards, who escorted Syanna to secure confinement in another wing of the palace. He thanked the Witchers with true humbleness and gratitude for the first time, and even offered them a guest room in the palace if they wished to stay overnight. 

But Geralt thought of the ekkimara which had turned up on their doorstep and thought better of it. So the Witchers returned to Corvo Bianco on their own, with a promise from Damien that they would soon be called to the palace for their reward. 

Geralt fell asleep curled around Eskel’s spine, a ridged scar on his belly pressing into the center of Geralt’s palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last chapter! Getting comments really does help motivate me to keep writing as well as making my experience of a fandom much better.


	58. Mandrake Cordial

This time they actually got to sleep in before vampires yet again intruded upon their lives. 

They were sitting down for lunch, and Barnabas-Basil had gone down to the cellar to fetch some wine to go with their meal. Geralt had just started buttering his bread when they heard a terrified shriek from below. 

Once the Witchers had grabbed their swords and run down to the wine cellar, they found Barnabas-Basil shivering in terror against one wall, faced by four garkains. One of them was the massive alpha Geralt had seen at the crypt, while the others looked both younger and smaller. They were clustered in a corner, squinting at Barnabas-Basil (and his trembling torch) in an unhappy sort of way and letting out peeved rumbles. 

They immediately perked up at the scent of Eskel. Their noises became higher-pitched and happier, heads bobbing and venom-sacs jiggling. 

Rolling his eyes, Eskel sheathed his sword and went over to them to let them sniff him. Barnabas-Basil watched this in abject horror. 

“I’m sorry, B.B.,” Geralt sighed. “We should have warned you about this. There’s been a lot going on in the last few days so it slipped my mind. It's, uh...well...that is to say...” 

That was when Geralt realized he had no clue how to explain this to a civilian. While Barnabas-Basil had been present for Dettlaff's proclamation that Eskel was his mate, Barnabas-Basil did not know that Dettlaff was a vampire. And while Barnabas-Basil had been extremely helpful so far, they hardly knew him and thus could not judge his trustworthiness with information of that sort. 

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Barnabas-Basil seemed to be breathing easier now, at least. His eyebrows lifted when the whole cluster of vampires started to purr.

“They seem...rather tame,” he said at last. Eskel spluttered as the alpha butted its forehead against his collarbones, accidentally blocking his nose and mouth with one large venom sac. It must have been like getting suffocated by kid leather. He had to tip his head up and brace himself on the thing’s shoulders as it huffed at his armpit.

“I think that as long as you don’t provoke them, you won’t have anything to fear,” Geralt said, desperately hoping that this was true. “Wouldn’t try to do what he’s doing, though. He’s, uh. Especially good with them.”

Geralt held his hand down to Barnabas-Basil, who took it. Once he was standing he brushed himself off one-handed. 

“No risk of me making any attempt of the sort,” he shuddered. “They are...you’ll excuse me for saying it, sir, but they’re rather unbeautiful.”

That was perhaps the mildest way Geralt had ever heard anyone describe a garkain. ‘Hideously fucking ugly’ was more accurate. Having a head like a ballsack that breathed was not a trait most people found endearing. 

“Are these what was responsible for the blood on the floor and all the strange noises in the woods the other day?” Barnabas-Basil asked. Which was a reasonable assumption, but led Geralt to an even more awkward disclosure. 

“Uh, no, actually. That was a different set of vampires. Sorry, that’s not very reassuring. There’s...there’s a lot of vampires in Toussaint.”

“Are there? Goodness. I never knew.”

“Unless you encroach on their territory, they prefer to feed on herbivores,” Geralt sighed. He declined to mention all the ones who looked human. “Better blood taste I guess. But there’s been some...strange things going on with the vampire populations here recently.”

“Does this have something to do with the contract you’re working on for the Duchess?” Barnabas-Basil asked, entirely too clever for his own good. The vampires, meanwhile, looked set to fall asleep on Eskel and he was having to forcibly disentangle himself from their clinging hands. 

“Yes,” Geralt acknowledged. “I can’t tell you more, I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say. But yes, it’s related.”

“Well then. I was told in advance that I would be employed by Witchers, so I should have expected incidents like this,” Barnabas-Basil said, demonstrating either incredible tolerance for his newfound circumstances or a very poor grasp on what Witchers normally did. “I shall select a wine that, er, isn’t in that portion of the cellar.”

The rest of their lunch passed uneventfully. 

The next few days passed uneventfully as well. The only thing of note was a letter from Regis delivered by raven, saying they were both secreted away in the crypt again. When Geralt and Eskel were at last called to the palace, Damien de la Tour met them privately. 

“I feel rather awkward telling you this, but we’ve a problem on our hands,” he admitted once they were all seated. “Word has gotten out that a vampire was behind the murders. And there have been so many vampire sightings recently that no one is having trouble believing this. The problem comes from the fact that the Palace has not yet made any announcement that the vampire has been apprehended and slain.”

Eskel lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Can’t just lie? The real culprit is imprisoned.”

“Yes, well...we had to let it be known that she was the mastermind, yes, but the populace now thinks she was using some sort of wicked magic to control the Beast, and that without her influence, it will run amok in the countryside and kill hundreds. I fear that if we do not do something soon, the Duchess and both of you will become very unpopular.”

Barnabas-Basil had mentioned he was having trouble getting vineyard workers to show up as promised. This was doubtlessly why. 

“We’ll see what we can do,” Geralt said. “We’ll bring you the head of something convincing within a week.”

But Damien still looked embarrassed. “The Duchess...has declined to pay you the money for this contract until this crisis is resolved. So for everyone’s sake, I do hope you hurry.”

No Witcher forgot when he was owed money, but they had already been paid so well with the vineyard that it hadn't been the forefront of Geralt's mind. Still, Barnabas-Basil had brought up the topic of renovations, and those cost money. So another large boon would not go unused. 

The two Witchers returned to the cemetery to talk to Dettlaff yet again. On the way over they discussed how to phrase this request, as Dettlaff was unlikely to wish to sacrifice one of his family to maintain anyone’s reputation. 

Regis answered their knock this time, kissing Geralt on the cheek before showing him down into the crypt. 

“Dettlaff will be happy to see you,” he told Eskel.

Eskel blinked in surprise. “Really? Would’ve thought--well, Syanna hasn’t given him a very good impression of human mates so far.”

“No, indeed not,” Regis sighed. “But thanks to our bond, _ Geralt _ has. Dettlaff can feel how highly I value him.” This caught Geralt off-guard and he preened silently. Regis valued him highly, eh? It wasn’t a declaration of love but it wasn’t bad either. “And you are like him, and mated to him," Regis went on, "so surely you must be similarly virtuous."

“Not really how it works, but thanks,” Eskel demurred, seeming embarrassed.

Regis stopped on the stairs, thus stopping both the Witchers as well. He dropped his voice lower. “No, of course not. If being in a relationship with someone good guaranteed anything about a person’s character, then Syanna would not have been like this. But that is how _ Dettlaff _ needs to believe it works right now. In his miserable and traumatized state, in which he cannot yet face the full scope of what has happened to him, he needs to believe that he will not always in all circumstances be trapped loving humans who hurt him.” Regis fixed Eskel with a very pointed look. “You need not engage in any intimacy with him which you do not desire. But please do nothing to dispel his rather fragile hope.” 

“Of course,” Eskel said, steady and sure.

The crypt was less crowded this time, but not empty of occupants either. Regis’s bed was swamped in what looked like three ekkimarae, with Dettlaff’s face and one arm just visible at one end of the heap. He was using that arm to stroke through the nearest ekkimara’s white ruff. An alp sat nearby, sewing something out of a pale blue fabric. She had not bothered with her human form. The claws on her feet clicked on the stone floor as she perhaps relived some favorite song.

Dettlaff looked up when they came in. For a moment his face lit up at the sight of Eskel, but he sagged just as quickly back onto the small mattress. It was rather heartbreaking to watch. 

Geralt really did not want to bring up the problem now. 

Eskel preempted him from having to do so. He crossed the room, seated himself by the pile of vampires on the bed, and took Dettlaff’s hand. Dettlaff looked up at him, wide-eyed, with an expression of open astonishment. 

“Sorry we couldn’t do more for you,” Eskel said, voice gruff as it was when he felt awkward. “How’re you holding up?”

Geralt stared at the two, caught off-guard. But then, he realized, why should he be surprised? He might not have the same sort of influence over Eskel as Regis had over Dettlaff, but it was not _no_ influence, either. Geralt and Eskel knew each other well enough to trust one another's judgment in most things. So if Geralt had seen fit to take a higher vampire as a lover, and to defend that choice to Eskel, why wouldn't Eskel be able to see higher vampires in the same way?

Geralt swallowed down his reflexive jealousy and distress. It was unbefitting for him to feel it after how many lovers he’d had while with Eskel. 

As Dettlaff began to haltingly tell Eskel about the last few days, how he’d burned the clothes he’d bought to please his Rhena and had been forced to wear Regis’s ill-fitting ones instead, Regis picked up a pair of bottles from beside the door and pulled Geralt away. They left the crypt together. Regis guided them north toward the beach where they’d bathed. 

“We ought to let them be. Even a friendship would ease Dettlaff’s heart greatly.”

“Do you ever...” Geralt started to ask, and then stopped himself. Regis made an interrogative noise and Geralt argued with himself about whether he should respond. 

In the past he would have left it there, changed the topic, pretended he’d never said anything. But over and over again with Eskel, he was finding it better if he just spoke his mind rather than keeping it all inside or assuming it didn't need to be said. It was not like with Yen, where she’d _read_ his mind to find out what she needed to know, or with Triss, who’d been so often hurt by his honest truths. And if Eskel liked Geralt’s honesty so much, then maybe Regis would too. 

“Do you ever feel jealous?” Geralt finally asked. He kicked at the crumbled corner of a gravestone which had fallen off into the grass. It shot away into the trees. 

“Ahhh,” Regis said, as though this question immediately made everything clear. Probably it did. Geralt hated the naked, raw feeling of that kind of understanding. “You fear that Eskel will leave you if you he accepts Dettlaff’s suit.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yeah. Things with me haven’t exactly been easy for him. I haven't always been much good at telling him how much I cared. Then I...I died, and Ciri took me away with Yennefer somewhere to let us recover, and left Eskel behind. Then when I came back from being dead or whatever I was, I had amnesia. Forgot him completely and took up with yet another sorceress.”

Regis let out a laugh, earning himself a glare. “I’m sorry, my dear, but when you describe it that way, he really has had almost comically bad luck with you. But I imagine your relationship hasn’t _all_ been bad luck, has it?”

They reached the beach and Regis settled comfortably onto the warm sand, unconcerned about getting it into his boots. Geralt supposed that if _he_ could turn into mist and leave behind anything he didn’t like, he’d be unconcerned too. But thankfully this pair of boots was in good repair, and had high enough tops that the sand would not invade. He still sat carefully. 

The heat of the beach warmed his backside, and when he dug his hands into it, he relished both the hot layer on top and the cool sand underneath. 

“Hasn’t been all bad, no. On my side, at least, it’s been wonderful. And I asked him to come here, and he came, so...”

“Ahh, to your beautiful house in your beautiful vineyard. That seems encouraging, does it not?”

“Yeah, but...but he could still decide he’s fed up with me. Run off with Dettlaff, I guess. Go with him to Nazair. Doesn’t Dettlaff have a house there?”

Regis nodded. “Yes. A very beautiful old manor, located far away from everything else on the edge of a forest. Syanna helped him purchase it, and find workmen willing to renovate and furnish it.” Regis sighed. “I think perhaps it may take some time before he thinks of it as anything beyond the house Syanna wanted. Even if it is also where he helped me recover, even if it is where his pack has been living, everything in and about that place will naturally remind him of her.”

“Right.” 

Regis pulled out the bottles he’d brought, holding them up with a smile. When he uncorked one, the powerful aroma of his mandrake brew wafted out. Geralt smiled in return and took a long swig when Regis offered him the bottle. He passed it back only reluctantly.

“Missed this stuff,” he admitted, trying not to look at Regis for fear his face would show something maudlin. “For years, every time I had to use mandrake in a potion I thought of you.”

Regis took a much smaller sip before returning it to Geralt. “Well now you can go back to having happy memories of me when you use it, hmm?”

They stared out over the lake together, eyes narrowed and focus soft against the bright glimmering of the water. Geralt took several more swigs. If he had to know that Eskel was talking to an extremely handsome vampire who was already in love with him, Geralt wanted to be drunk. 

“Feel so stupid, being jealous,” Geralt admitted finally. “Makes me feel like a prick. I fuck half the damn continent and never once even think to check if Eskel’s fine with that, because we’re Witchers and that’s just how Witchers are. And here I am with _you,_ even, and Eskel allows that without griping even if he doesn’t like it. But as soon as someone likes Eskel, I want to grab him and run away so no one else can have him.”

“Mm. If that makes you stupid, then perhaps I must acknowledge my own wits to be in similarly limited supply.”

Geralt twisted his neck around to stare at Regis. “Really?” he said, incredulous.

Regis merely shrugged, his expression still casual and unaffected. “Oh, not about Dettlaff, not now he has reopened our bond. Funny, how clear that became as soon as we reconnected. With him, when we are in communion, I know with absolute certainty that he adores me and will do so forever. But with you...I confess I am rather less certain.”

“Oh,” Geralt said, now feeling even worse. “Shit. I...shit, I didn’t think of it with you either. _Fuck!”_

“Why should you think of it?” Regis contradicted. “I have never given you any sign of unease.”

“Dammit, I still should’ve--” Geralt began, and then took another long draft of the mandrake cordial. Why did he keep doing this to people? Was he really this inept? Clearly he was. “Ugh. I’m sorry, okay. Are you...I don’t even know how to ask this. Are you all right with us the way we are?”

Regis smiled, looking unruffled and cool as ever. “Well, you did recently make a dramatic declaration of your love after seeing me in the worst possible state a vampire can be in. So I confess to feeling rather more settled than I did before, at least. But nonetheless I still find my own experience echoed in your words. I find myself in states of mortifying possessiveness toward you. Not because vampires are naturally possessive, as we are not, but because you are _ not _ a vampire, and are instead a Witcher.”

“Right,” Geralt acknowledged, squirming in his own awkwardness now. “Right, yeah.”

“I find myself doubting you, often,” Regis confessed. “'He cannot possibly have meant what he said,' I think. A vampire might be a momentary diversion to a Witcher, or a fetish, as humans once were to me, but nothing more. After all, what could I possibly offer to a human that another human could not do better?”

“I don’t need you to do ‘better,’ whatever that means,” Geralt said, a little too loud. He glanced up the beach. A fishing cottage stood nearby, and while he did not think there were was anyone in it just now, he wanted to be sure. “I just want you. I didn’t want Yennefer to be Eskel, or vice versa. I like you because you’re...I don’t know. I’m bad with words at times like this. Because you're you, I guess.”

His feelings for Regis were a warm wordless thing that lived inside him. Some combination of amusement for the avuncular appearance Regis had chosen for his human form, enjoyment of his intelligence and breadth of knowledge, lust for the delicious ways Regis could make him feel, and admiration for the immense journey of recovery and penitence Regis had undertaken in his long life. Trying to describe it would be like trying to describe the color red to someone who had never seen it. Geralt might be able to bumble his way through the task but would never be able to encapsulate the thing in any meaningful way. 

“How do you find my personal brew? Not too strong?” Regis asked. Apparently he wanted to change the subject, and Geralt let him do it, not eager to stew in his own discomfort any further. 

So Geralt took another big gulp of the brew in question, letting it burn down his throat to warm his belly in perfect counterpoint to the heat of the sun on his skin. It wasn’t just the alcohol that gave it such zing; being made from mandrake meant a strong gingery taste with its own warmth, deepened by the dark strange overtones that distinguished it from its more mundane cousin. Geralt smiled at Regis, offering him the bottle again, but Regis waved it away, so Geralt drank more.

“Just right,” Geralt complimented. 

Regis smiled back. “Credit the local mandrake, of the _Alrauna Diavolis_ variety, for that. The tubers which grow in this area’s volcanic soil have an altogether unique flavor profile and display a remarkably uncommon dark brown tint.”

Geralt’s smile only widened at this very characteristic response. “Fascinating. All I can say is, this batch turned out excellent.”

They lapsed into a long silence. The beautiful comfort of it all was _ almost _ enough to drown out Geralt’s awareness of Dettlaff and Eskel saying who-knew-what to each other nearby. Almost. 

“Copper for your thoughts,” Geralt said when he couldn’t bear it anymore. The mandrake drink was starting to hit him now, softening everything and brightening the colors. Toussaint looked even more incredible, as did Regis. So Geralt leaned close, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “Lemme guess: me, naked, spread out over Dettlaff’s chest while you both enjoy me.”

The look he got in response to this wasn’t quite shocked, but he got the impression he had actually managed to surprise the old vampire. “Is that something you want, Geralt? Goodness, that is quite the image, isn’t it. But no, I was thinking about...oh, how _ anything _ can be beautiful when properly lit. In moonlight, for example.”

Geralt’s brow wrinkled up in confusion at this. “Even an old necrophage corpse?” he asked, perplexed. He had well and truly forgotten how powerful Regis’s moonshine was. The beach below him spun gently, and only his exceptional alcohol tolerance kept him coherent. He remembered when he’d first met Regis, and Regis had intentionally let all of them get drunk on his brew. Mandrake, brewed as Regis did it, loosened the tongue far more than normal alcohol.

Regis shook his head. “You’ve not an ounce of refinement in you, have you? But no, I was thinking of rather more, ahh..._ living _ monster bodies.”

“Succubus tits, then.” When Regis snorted at him and let out a long-suffering groan, Geralt conceded defeat at this particular guessing-game. “Got a specific monster body in mind?”

A long, long pause greeted this, so long that it took Geralt a second to understand what Regis meant when he finally said, “Well...mine, actually.”

Geralt laughed at this once he’d managed to make himself understand it. “Seen it already. Like it no matter the lighting.”

“You flatter me. But I was thinking...well...I was thinking about the body of mine you _ haven’t _ seen yet.”

“There’s another...?” Geralt asked, confused again until his sodden brain supplied what Regis meant: his full moon form. 

“Well...yes. It’s not...it’s not any sort of requirement that you see it, of course, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I’m never what anyone would call lovely, not even in my human form, and this one, is, well...it’s rather...”

Understanding dawned and Geralt let out a low chuckle, leaning close to kiss Regis on the cheek and shake him a bit. “Regis, are you being _ shy? _ Is that what this is? Shy Regis?”

Regis glared at Geralt, looking both flustered and irritated. “Well yes! My full-moon form is--is--it’s _bestial!_ And you’re a Witcher! I cannot just expect you to like that sort of thing, even if I--well nevermind.”

Geralt leaned away for a better look at him. Under the influence of mandrake, Regis in the sun appeared to have a kind of shine to him, a shimmer that Geralt found he wanted to look at all day. “No, no! Even if you _what?”_

“Not important. I’m being foolish.”

“Doubt you are. Just say it. Not gonna let this go, you know.”

Regis sighed, fiddling with one of his long fingernails. “Fine, since you insist, but I want it on the record that I think this conversation is inadvisable. But...for higher vampires, the full moon is...hrm. Not exactly a holy day, in the way humans think of it. But in areas where vampires congregate, such as Toussaint, it is often celebrated. In our home world, I’m told, there were six moons, so it was different. Because of the way the magics flowed differently through that place, we could take our full-moon form at any time. But here, it is only for a few days a month that we can assume that shape. Among vampires, it is seen as...as, well...as our _ truest _ shape.”

Geralt realized, then, what this was about. He sidled closer, pressing their sides together in disregard of how the movement would get sand into his breeches. He wrapped his arm around Regis’s slender waist. 

“And you’re afraid I’ll be disgusted?”

“That is a rather strong word, and I would not presume, but...ah, well. Yes. I am afraid. It would be reasonable for any human to feel so, and especially a Witcher.”

“But it’s important to you. That I see and like this...this truest shape. The truest you.”

“It is not mandatory,” Regis demurred, and Geralt knew that while Regis might never bring this up again, and would certainly never tell him directly that he was unhappy without this, he very much would be. “I shan’t pout and moan if you’re not interested. It is only...you said you loved me. So I thought perhaps, if you truly meant that and it wasn’t just a passing fancy, that you might like...or at least, that you might tolerate...”

Geralt set the bottle down, took Regis’s hands, and stopped him from talking by leaning their faces together. 

“Regis. I already know what you are. I’m not gonna run off now.”

From this close, it was easy to see how Regis’s lashes fluttered closed at this. “No one would blame you if you did.”

Geralt’s heart broke a little. How long this had been bothering Regis? Was it only since Geralt had confessed? Or had it been the whole time they’d been sleeping together, even before Regis’s death? It must have taken a great deal of courage to ask at all. 

_ “I’d _ blame me,” Geralt said simply. 

Witchers rarely needed to know the day of the week or even the month, as they were rarely welcome at festivals or expected any particular place at any particular date. But Witchers did need to be aware of the moon, as many monsters either gained or lost strength according to its phases. So he knew that the next full moon was a week away. 

“Just tell me where to meet you and I’ll be there,” he promised. “I’m _excited_ to see the 'truest you'.”

One corner of Regis’s mouth crooked up in a look of rueful amusement. “You may not have an ounce of refinement, but sometimes you really are quite wonderful in your own way. I only hope you’ll still feel that way afterward. My full-moon form is not...it’s not handsome, or pretty, or anything else.” 

“Will be to me.”

Regis kissed Geralt. The heat had dried their lips, making the kiss papery and light. Geralt found he loved that as much as wet, sticky kisses. 

By the time they returned to the crypt, Geralt was almost sober. He wished they’d fucked, as his libido was not in any way dampened by alcohol. But Regis was conscientious about that sort of thing--even if, Geralt realized as he went down the dark stairs once more, Regis had almost certainly _again_ gotten Geralt drunk on purpose to see what he’d say when the mandrake had made him honest. Clever bastard. Also sad, given how clearly he’d expected Geralt to reject him in the worst possible way. What had he wanted, some terrible dismissal of his heartfelt request?

They found Eskel in the middle of telling Dettlaff about the time Geralt, aged thirteen, had decided that a single name was not enough, and had wanted to be called _ Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde. _

“Godsdammit,” Geralt hissed under his breath. That was an embarrassing story and he couldn’t imagine why Dettlaff would want to hear it. But he was smiling, which, given his mental state right now, seemed like an accomplishment on both his and Eskel’s part. Dettlaff was using some sort of brush on the nearest ekkimara, which was purring at the attention. 

Regis gave the scene a pleased look before nudging Geralt. “If I read you right, you had an actual reason for this visit beyond just my scintillating company, correct?”

Eskel and Dettlaff both must have overheard them, because they both sobered. 

“Yes,” Dettlaff confirmed. “I do not like it, but...there is one of my kind I cannot sway without exerting constant force. He lives in a small village at the foot of Mount Gorgon. I have been waiting for some time for a Witcher to arrive to fulfill the contract on him anyway. He preys upon the locals, and has already killed two children.”

“By 'one of your kind,' you don’t mean a higher vampire, right?” Geralt asked, because there was no way that would result in anything but both of them dead. 

Dettlaff shook his head, now looking even more unhappy. Geralt felt guilty for bringing this up, but they had to find a solution to the situation in Beauclair. 

“No. A very old katakan, and thus unlikely to change his ways, much though I could wish otherwise.”

Right. So one of the smart ones, who could take human form. That was how he had escaped detection, presumably.

As Eskel got up to leave, Dettlaff watched him with open longing in his eyes. A throb of anxiety went through Geralt but he pushed it down. 

They returned to Corvo Bianco, donned their armor, oiled their swords, and set off to Mount Gorgon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eskel is a Disney princess with lower vampires now, Geralt is Bad At Communicating About Polyamory, and Regis has Monster Feels


	59. Finishing the Contract

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, here's another chapter at last. Work stress plus an ugly fandom interaction kicked me in the inspiration and I couldn't make myself write for a bit there. But I'm DETERMINED to finish this beast of a fic. There's only a couple chapters left after this one!

Killing the katakan was unpleasant. At the first scent of Witchers he fled the town and they had to track him into a cave system. But while he was big, strong, and clever, he didn’t bathe often enough, and his scent was easy to follow. The two of them together wore him down, cornered him, and killed him. 

Eskel wiped blood off his face, sighing over the new gash on his forehead. 

“Suppose it can’t make a bad sight any worse,” he said grimly.

Geralt sighed, smacking at his shoulder. “Shut up with that.”

He cleaned Eskel’s wound with the small bottle of strong alcohol he kept in his hip satchel, Eskel wincing as he did so, and then Geralt knelt to cut the beast’s head off. 

They rode straight to the palace afterward. The nobles they passed on the way to Damien’s office stared aghast at them both, covered as they were in blood, one of them with an obviously-new facial wound, and bearing the fresh head of a dramatic-looking species of vampire. This particular katakan had, in his vampire form, an earspan of more than three feet. The cartilaginous expanse bobbed as the Witchers moved.

The staring and tittering was, Geralt supposed, exactly what they needed right now. By the end of the day, news of the Witchers returning with the head of the Beast would be everywhere. 

Damien accepted the thing with both the relief and disgust one would expect. It was not a pleasant item to be gifted, but all three men knew that it would immediately make Damien’s life easier if he were able to display it and reassure the masses that the supposed threat to their lives was over. 

“And this is not the vampire who actually committed the murders?” Damien asked, once one of his men had supplied an appropriate platter on which to place the thing. 

“No. He found us this one, though, and this one was a killer in truth. There was a contract on him in a town to the west.”

“The blackmailed vampire _ helped _ you,” Damien said with some skepticism, but then he sighed. “I am aware of the contract of which you speak. Two children dead in the last year, and a variety of adults missing with no bodies found. You did not collect on that contract, I hope? If you did, we will not be able to use this.”

“No, of course not,” Eskel replied. “We went quietly into the town, spoke to no one and made no inquiries. We knew exactly which house this one lived in. It was on the outskirts where he could take his living victims to feed on them in peace. This species is one which can assume human form. So when the town residents discover him missing, they will assume he is one of his own victims.”

A look of horror appeared on Damien’s features. He gestured at the head, with its fanged mouth with blood gutters in the middle of the lips, horns, and fur. _ “This _ thing was capable of looking human? Gods above, I will never feel safe again.”

Eskel shrugged. “That’s why you have Witchers. And unlike everyone else in the world, you now have Witchers who _ live _ here.”

Damien at last saw the wisdom of that.

Given that they had now not only completed the contract but returned the Duchess’s long lost sister, Damien told them that the Duchess would wish to bestow a medal on them both, for which they would need appropriate garb. 

“We’ve still got our clothes from the soiree, we’ll be fine,” Geralt protested. 

This earned him an irritable look from Damien. In that moment, when Geralt realized that the reward for his service would be more fittings for more horrible clothes, he felt extremely ill-used. 

But Geralt survived the fittings. He also survived the ceremony in which the Duchess awarded them both medals for their service, paid them a staggering quantity of gold, and gifted them with barrels of the rare ducal wine. The Duchess might as well have announced to everyone that she viewed them as family--and this fact moved Geralt more than he wanted to admit. Anarietta was a difficult woman, as dangerous in her anger as she was generous in her affection. But there were few nobles who would knowingly tie themselves to Witchers, and she had now given them a home, acknowledged their relationship, and welcomed them into her life. 

Geralt survived Eskel’s trips to visit Dettlaff every afternoon, too. In the mornings Dettlaff slept--and his misery was worst when he first awoke, because he remembered all over again what had happened and he both missed Syanna, worried about her, and never wanted to see Syanna ever again. Both Eskel and Regis reported that Dettlaff was happier in Eskel’s company--and Eskel seemed happier with Dettlaff’s company, too. He came home smiling, and after the first few days, he came home smelling of Dettlaff's skin.

Geralt had never before had to _ watch _ Eskel develop feelings for anyone else. There had been a few other men over the long decades of their lives with whom Eskel had fallen in love. In those cases, Geralt had felt _gratitude_ toward those men for making Eskel feel wanted during the months when Geralt could not. But all of those men had been mere stories to Geralt, tales told by Eskel during his winters at Geralt's side. Geralt had never been forced to meet or interact with those men, which meant he had never felt a need to compare himself to them, and it had been impossible for them to compete for Eskel’s time and attention. For those Witchers who loved their own kind, that was the Witcher way: Witcher lovers were for winter and every other kind of lover for the rest of the year. 

Yet now Geralt was increasingly aware that he had broken that unspoken rule first by bringing Yennefer to Kaer Morhen so many times, and second (unbeknownst to him at the time) having a relationship with Triss there as well. And in Toussaint, the whole system had been torn apart at the seams. No Witcher rules applied if they weren’t on the Path. 

The days when both Geralt and Eskel spent time with their respective vampires were easiest. Regis and Geralt went on long walking expeditions in search of herbal ingredients. Regis taught Geralt soapmaking and other practical alchemical skills which had not been included in the Witcher regimen. And on the second to last day before the full moon, they reacquainted themselves with the ways their bodies fit together. 

That afternoon, Geralt discovered yet another limit to Eskel’s patience. Eskel's nostrils flared as soon as Geralt returned to the house, which was when Geralt himself realized he stank of another man's semen. This provoked another uncomfortable conversation in which Eskel had to ask Geralt to at least wash or cover up the scent next time. Geralt forced himself to suppress his own defensiveness and just listen. 

That night a small, miserable part of himself feared that this was the beginning of the end. Proof that two Witchers--or maybe just Geralt himself--could not create anything which would last. 

But he and Eskel woke up side by side the next morning, and the simple pleasure of that was so great that Geralt forgot his fear. They had known each other since Eskel had been four years old and his mother had given him to the Witchers, Geralt reminded himself. If almost ninety years, multiple wars, parenthood, magical curses, a massive array of monsters, and a variety of other lovers had not torn them apart yet, it seemed silly to think that a few awkward conversations would do it.

They had fallen in love and spent most of their time together in the same fortress where they had been _tortured_ side by side as children. Their relationship had survived those horrific memories and every form of mutilation which had followed after. Surely, then, it could survive their _happiness_ in a pretty little house on a beautiful estate?

At least Geralt wanted to hope that.


	60. Full Moon Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many feelings about Geralt and Eskel being able to retire

It was a strange day indeed when a Witcher _ didn’t _ wake up hard. When that happened it usually signaled a serious injury or toxicity. And as both Geralt and Eskel were in fine health (aside from the scabby cut on Eskel’s forehead, which had just begun to peel around the edges) that meant they both woke up ready and eager. 

As had happened so many other mornings together throughout so many winters, Eskel pushed himself up to sit against the headboard while Geralt slid down and opened his mouth. The only variance this time was that it was late spring, and in Toussaint they didn’t have to hide under the blankets because of Kaer Morhen’s icy temperatures. Sometimes they did other things in the mornings, of course, but this had always been their favorite way to start a day together: Eskel with his feet braced on the bed and his hands in Geralt’s hair, fucking into Geralt’s mouth as Geralt rubbed himself on the mattress.

When Eskel had come and slid back down the bed to give Geralt a hand, and when Geralt had come too and was feeling relaxed and happy as a result, he thought about how many times they’d done this. They’d first begun touching each other at twelve, and had progressed to this by thirteen. Or perhaps they had been even younger? 

Their bodies had been so different then, only a year or two out from the Trial of the Grasses. So young that scars hadn’t yet begun to truly stick, Geralt realized. Smooth-skinned and still growing into manhood, their cocks still relatively small and easy to handle, with only a few hairs yet grown on their chins and under their arms. All the boys had been fascinated by the way Geralt’s hair had gone white in the extra Trials he’d been through, seeing it as a mark of his toughness, but they teased him for the ivory-pale curls he’d grown around his cock. Except Eskel, who liked to run his fingers over them till Geralt had plumped up into his palm.

He’d always liked seeing what he could make Geralt’s body do. From their very first young explorations all the way through now.

Geralt wondered what those boys would think if they could see their future selves. Eskel would be horrified by the scars on his own face, perhaps, but Geralt liked to hope that little Eskel would also be heartened to know that Geralt was still here at his side. 

Geralt could barely remember his own thoughts at that age. Probably there had been anxiety about surviving the remaining Trials now that they’d seen first-hand how deadly the Trials could be. Buried grief, too, over the friends they’d lost so recently, grief that they turned into a furious determination to succeed. That was when they’d all become so competitive, after more than half of them had died. 

Geralt could just barely recall dim glimmers of sweet hopefulness he had felt at Eskel’s side. He wondered if he had already known that Eskel was special. He wondered if that was when he’d started dreaming that a happily ever after could be his, or if that had come much later.

“Is there anything else you want?” Geralt asked after a pause.

Eskel bit his shoulder hard enough that Geralt yelped. “You’re _ never _ satisfied with just one.” 

Geralt shook his head, slapping vaguely at Eskel’s arm. “Well yeah. But for once I wasn’t talking about sex. I meant...I dunno. From life. Now we have Corvo Bianco together. Is there anything else you want?”

“A racing saddle, a plate of olives and cheese and bread, and another five thousand crowns,” Eskel responded at once. 

Geralt smiled at this. “Fine, now you mention it, but I meant anything you want from _me._ With me.”

Rolling over onto one elbow, Eskel grinned down at him. “So this is about sex after all.”

“Oh fuck off,” Geralt shoved at him, but limply, because his orgasm _ had _ been very good. “I’m trying to be a good lover, inquire after your desires--”

“You’re a randy bitch,” Eskel grinned, bending to kiss him, their mouths sticking together when they parted again. “But hmm.” He appeared to think about it for a moment. A smile slid back into place on him, scarred lip showing his sharp canines. 

“Sometimes I imagine branding your ass,” Eskel laughed, reaching under Geralt’s hip and grabbing the backside in question. “Make sure everyone knows that no matter where you wander, you’ve got a home now, mm?”

Probably it was meant as a joke, but Geralt couldn’t help the way his cock jumped and plumped against Eskel’s hip. Eskel, the bastard, noticed and stared at him. 

“Y’like that, huh?” He dug his nails into Geralt’s soft flesh on purpose this time. “Like the idea of belonging here, with me?”

Geralt said nothing, admitted nothing, just sighed a long breath against Eskel’s cheek. Eskel knew him so well that this was enough. 

“Got so many scars, not much of a place left to put it,” Eskel whispered, nipping at Geralt’s ear, his chin, the bump of his throat. “Maybe I’d have to put it on your face. That way everyone could see it.”

To counter the sharpness of his teeth, he kissed along the soft skin of Geralt’s cheek, up to the lines beside his eye, which slid closed. 

“Right here,” Eskel murmured, the air of the H gusting across Geralt’s lashes. “I’d have to make some sigil to mean that Corvo Bianco is mine, and you along with it.” 

A shudder went through Geralt. He curled his right hand around Eskel’s nape, holding him there so the heat of his breath would mimic the brand. 

“Already got the eyes to mark me as a Witcher,” he said, not really sure what he meant by it. It surprised him how shaky the words came out.

“You want me to mark you as something else, don’t you,” Eskel whispered. “You’ve belonged to the Wolf School your whole life. Now there’s no more Wolf School, and you’re only _ mine.” _

That was it. That was what Geralt had meant. Somehow Eskel had known. 

Geralt thought of Regis, and how a part of Geralt’s heart lay with him too, just as a portion of Eskel’s heart might soon belong to Dettlaff. Yet Eskel’s words were true anyway. The fact that Geralt was in love with someone else didn’t affect the fact that Geralt wanted to belong to Eskel. Not even a djinn’s magic, not even having Geralt’s _ soul _ bound to someone else had changed that. 

_“Yes,”_ Geralt affirmed. 

Geralt felt something then that he didn’t know how to identify. His heart beat fast and his limbs were full of restless energy. From the way Eskel kissed and gripped at him, Geralt thought Eskel felt it too. 

They knew each other’s bodies so well that it would have been easy to just fuck after that. It might have been simpler to turn this strange rapport into just another pair of climaxes. But neither of them seemed to want that. They rolled around the sheets together for another minute or two, then they both wordlessly got out of bed, dressed, and went into the dining room. They sat their chairs too close together, elbows bumping as they ate, yet neither of them moved apart. 

Which was when Geralt realized that he’d felt this before: this was how he’d felt with Yennefer. With Triss. _ Women _ with whom he could imagine a real future, women who had helped him raise Ciri, where his wanting of them wasn’t just physical or even emotional but was _ logistical _ and _ familial _ as well. He hadn’t just desired an orgasm or a sign of affection, but an entire future and everything that entailed. A wanting that didn’t have an obvious action or end-point which went with it. 

Geralt finished eating breakfast at Eskel’s side and he _ wanted. _ His full belly didn’t make him feel any more satisfied, just as another orgasm wouldn’t have changed this either. His thoughts spun and spun: didn’t he already have everything he’d once dreamed of? Hadn’t he already arrived at ‘happily ever after’? Hell, didn’t he have _ more _ than he’d dreamed possible, now that Regis had fallen into the mix as well? All those years when he’d convinced himself he couldn’t have this with a man and yet here he was.

“Copper for your thoughts,” Eskel said at last, as Geralt sat crushing the last mouthfuls of bread into little lumps. 

Geralt’s brow wrinkled up. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Eskel’s eyes dropped, and he shifted in his chair so their thighs were no longer touching. 

“Sorry that I made it weird, before.”

At this Geralt blinked, coming out of his own thoughts and staring at the other man, who Geralt could now see looked self-conscious and unhappy. 

“What? No, this isn’t about that.”

“Isn’t it? I said I wanted to _ brand your face. _ I’d understand if you’re upset.”

Geralt could only laugh at this. “No, I’d probably let you do that if you really wanted it. This isn’t about that.”

Eskel gave Geralt an incredulous narrow-eyed stare. Geralt struggled to find the words. 

“What do you do when you still crave what you already have?” he said at last, and when Eskel gave him a puzzled look, Geralt tried to explain. 

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said instead. “On the Path your day is organized around finding the next contract. Fulfilling it. Figuring out where your next meal will come from. Where you can safely rest.” Eskel looked a little more like he understood now, but Geralt still hadn’t managed to say what he felt. “It’s been so long wanting something beyond the Path. Now I have it...how do I stop? I look at you and I think--” there was the reflexive resistance again, but Geralt was getting better at pushing past it, “--I think, I _ want _ him. I want him.” The discomfort in saying it made him shift in his seat, but he kept his knee pressed against Eskel’s. “But I have you already! And yet I’m still left _ wanting. _ It’s like I’ll have to go back onto the Path in another month and leave you again. Like I’ve overstayed at Kaer Morhen and we’ll run out of food soon--like something has to go wrong, or I can’t actually have this. I don’t know how to stop wanting and just _have_ you.”

“Don’t know how to believe it’s done and over, yeah,” Eskel said, as though this conversation were finishing some thought of his own. But then he sighed. “If you need to go, you still can. I won’t keep you here.”

Geralt huffed, setting down the much-abused bread and taking Eskel’s hand instead. “That’s just it--I don’t want to. Not without you. I’m done with us leaving each other behind.”

“Yeah,” Eskel agreed. “But I think I know what you mean. I keep waiting for something to go wrong too. I feel...” His mouth scrunched up as it was his turn to search for words now. “I feel like a thief. Like I _stole_ you, and this place, and sooner or later someone will realize and come to take it all away.”

“Yeah.”

For a while both of them sat. Geralt wanted this feeling to stop, but he was grateful, in a guilty sort of way, that at least Eskel shared it. That they weren't alone in it. 

To assuage their anxiety they spent the day exploring the estate and grounds. They looked in all the cupboards, examined all the vintages in the cellars, opened all the boxes before going out onto the grounds to look at the vines and trees, the wells and pathways and the houses where the workers would live once they moved in.

Geralt and Eskel both knew the lands around Kaer Morhen to a nicety even accounting for the changes wrought by time. Perhaps part of growing more comfortable here was to understand this place, too. 

Barnabas-Basil was delighted when they expressed an interest in (and gave coin for) renovations, too. He contacted the relevant craftspeople right away. 

If this was their home, Geralt reasoned, perhaps they ought to make it theirs rather than living in the remains of a life left behind by someone else. They’d done that their whole childhoods in Kaer Morhen. Hand-me-down beds, blankets, swords, boots, books; nearly everything had been used by others before them, patched and mended and tailored for new wearers. Even on the Path, one only afforded new belongings when the old had grown too damaged for use and Kaer Morhen was too far away to just raid the armory. 

But now they had money and time. They could create something truly theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out Witchers in love have a huge amount of abandonment trauma after being literally abandoned by their families, watching most people they know die horribly, and then having to leave one another behind over and over again. I'm trying to keep this story light at the end here, but yeah. Sometimes feelings come up when you actually get what you want.


	61. Full Moon Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had such a difficult time writing this chapter. I started writing it as just pure monster smut. Monster smut is great and all, and there hopefully will be some at some point, but I stalled out halfway through writing it because my subconscious knew I was missing something. Thanks to the suggestions of [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill) and others in the Discord server I'm in, I finally figured out what was wrong. Now you get emotional content instead! (And hopefully also monster smut? We'll see what I can do.)
> 
> EDIT: I tried a [sketch](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1136782) of what I thought Regis's face might look like in his full-moon form. I didn't quite get it right, but it's close enough.

Geralt knew he should not bring expectations to his full-moon meeting with Regis. He knew that Regis would be nervous, self-conscious, and that other vampires would be present. Geralt had no idea if Regis would want anything physical tonight beyond simply Geralt’s presence and approval. 

But Geralt knew himself well enough to know that _ he _ would not want to stop at simply seeing. That Regis would be a different shape was exciting for the sake of novelty, and for the sake of increasing Witcher knowledge of higher vampires, but that was all. And Witcher libido in addition to a partner he loved--well. Instead Geralt worried he would have the opposite problem from the one Regis anticipated. Trying to disguise an erection from a vampire was a lost cause, and he didn’t want to make Regis feel awkward. 

Still, if nothing else, it would be an expedient way to demonstrate that he wasn’t repulsed. Regis wouldn’t be able to go on believing whatever he believed about himself or their relationship if Geralt was straining against his breeches and embarrassing himself. 

Geralt washed and groomed himself himself with care. If _ Eskel _ did not like what he could detect after Geralt slept with someone else, Geralt doubted Regis’s even more sensitive nose would care for it any better. So Geralt bathed himself with the scented soap Regis himself had made, brushed his teeth, and chewed anise and mint. He also trimmed his beard. His hair he wore loose, letting it fall around his shoulders.

Geralt was well aware his long hair was a silly vanity, easy for an opponent to grab and use against him. But if he’d had to be tortured not once but twice as a child, and if that torture had left him with shining white hair, then the least he could get out of it was something that looked lovely under moonlight. 

Geralt left Eskel with a kiss. Regis had said that Dettlaff too would be at the full moon gathering tonight. But Eskel had said nothing about going, so perhaps Dettlaff had not asked, or he had and Eskel was not ready for this. If the full-moon shape was a vampire’s ‘truest self,’ and Eskel was still getting used to the idea of wanting a vampire at all, then this would be rushing things. 

Besides, Eskel's absence meant that Geralt could enjoy whatever happened with Regis without worrying about anyone else’s feelings. Even if all that happened was that he got to see Regis with wings. 

Regis had said that the gathering would take place on the shores of the small lake to the west of Corvo Bianco. It was a secluded area, rarely frequented by humans, but apparently a favored spot among the local vampires for full moon meetings. 

The cool night air flowed through Geralt’s loose shirt as he walked. His hip satchel bumped against his thigh, containing a tin of slippery salve and a fresh lump of Regis’s soap. Perhaps Geralt wouldn’t need either. But if he did... 

The moon settled Geralt’s mind and guided his steps, just as it surely did for many of Regis’s kin. Geralt caught glimpses of faces among the trees, shapes high above him in the sky whose specifics he could not see. He felt his heart thump, pumping blood through his veins in heated anticipation. He felt the thinness of his own skin. He imagined it giving below sharp teeth. 

Geralt knew he’d arrived when he found bruxae dancing in a clearing. A massive katakan sat nearby, thumping a rhythm on a drum as another sang an eerie tune. A katakan could sing as no human could, the tune rumbling all the way from the deepest growls to high, wavering notes, accented with harsh clicking noises that might have been made by the tongue or might have been from some organ humans lacked. None of the vampires wore their human skins. 

Geralt stood back among the trees, keenly aware of himself as an outsider--and worse still, a Witcher. This was a privilege he was almost certain that no Witcher had ever been allowed before. Perhaps the only other Witcher who would _ ever _ be allowed was Eskel. 

But the vampires were more forgiving than Geralt had any right to expect. A familiar bruxa, the one he and Eskel had briefly fought and to whom Geralt had apologized, pulled him into the dance. She steadied him as he stumbled his way through the complex weave of bodies, leading him into a pattern he could _ feel _ was ancient. Clawed feet had probably danced this dance before any Witcher had ever set foot on the soil of this world.

The pattern of it wove a kind of magic, like the tracing of a sigil. The steps sank into Geralt’s bones, suffusing him, and Geralt then all at once Geralt understood--this was a dance of simultaneous mourning and exultation. This dance was, somehow, a version of the story of how the vampires had lost their homeworld and found themselves here in Toussaint. The sudden realization dropped like a rock into the pool of his mind and rippled out into every bit of knowledge he had ever learned about vampires. 

Maybe the bruxa saw the change. “Regis will not partake,” she smiled at him, sharp and welcoming at the same time. “But perhaps you will offer yourself to Dettlaff? Or to the rest of us. Even with your mind untouched you are unafraid. And you smell so, so sweet.”

A thrill went through Geralt at that. Gooseflesh ran up his arms all the way to the nape of his neck. In this particular moment, their faces were close, so she spoke softly--but Geralt was under no illusion that this conversation was a private one, not with ears this keen all around. 

“I would like to leave still conscious,” he said carefully. “But I am willing if someone wants a taste, and means to cause me no pain or harm in getting it.”

They separated then--this movement in the dance called for the stamping of their feet and the clapping of their hands. The striking of dry, clawed palms echoed in the woods. Then she slid back to his side, wrapping her hands around his waist. Her eyes glittered as she looked up at him. 

“Did you know you tingle to the touch?” she asked. “You hold magic in your skin, your flesh. I wonder if your blood would do the same in my mouth.”

“I’ve only ever had Sorceresses remark upon it before,” Geralt told her. “But perhaps all magical beings can feel my mutations.”

“Dettlaff deserves something special,” she said then. “For six moons we have searched for him. We danced here but we could feel his pain. And tonight he will finally join us again.”

As if summoned, between one step and the next Regis and Dettlaff appeared at Geralt’s side. Dettlaff wore his natural face, teeth long and bared in a smile as he took the bruxa into his arms--and Regis took Geralt into his. Regis still wore his human appearance as the four of them moved smoothly back into the dance, steps barely interrupted. But as they moved, Regis’s face changed, subsiding step by step into its natural form. A slow dropping of guard.

Geralt remembered the first time he had ever seen dancing, when he’d been recently upon the Path and had stopped in a town upon Belleteyn night. He had watched from a distance, envious and confused. He knew so many quick, clever ways to move his body and his swords, but he had not known how to do this, and he thought he probably never would. Dancing was a thing done in pairs and groups, and he could see that it was both a kind of courtship ritual and a demonstration of communal bonds. So who would ever want to dance with a Witcher?

Yet Geralt had danced with Yennefer sometimes. She had taught him, demanding and impatient but pleased when he got it right. And sometimes Dandelion’s songs had met an audience so boisterous and so indiscriminately drunk that they’d pull even a Witcher into their midst. It had been beautiful to move in a rhythm that was neither violence or sex. 

Now Regis led with practiced ease, claws trailing over Geralt’s palms as they held and parted and moved together. For a few foolish moments Geralt feared what the others would think of two men dancing together--and then he remembered that these were _ vampires, _ not Nordlings. If they had not objected to a Witcher in their midst, they would not care about this. Especially not if Dettlaff himself now had two male mates.

Regis used Geralt’s hands and waist to move him, guiding him through even more difficult steps than the bruxa had dared. Another layer of the story, Geralt realized, a more intricate weaving of the same magic. Geralt’s heart beat fast and he wondered if Regis could hear it even through the music. Feel it through their touch. 

Other vampires came and went, but Regis stayed at Geralt’s side. Geralt smelled the bloom of his own sweat and wondered how many of those present could already tell how eager he was. He wondered if it would enhance his taste. 

Finally, Regis pulled him away into the trees and Geralt stumbled after him. He had walked under night skies for decades but _now_ he had no concept of time or place. He only knew that the moon was full and its silver light caught on Regis’s fangs and speckled skin. 

“Bringing me here,” he breathed when they finally halted in a private grove some ways away. They had danced so long that Geralt could still feel the rhythm of it in his legs and feet and chest. He wrapped his arms around Regis’s shoulders, bringing their faces close again. “Bringing me here wasn’t just about showing me _ your _ shape. It was about showing me the shape of all of this--_all_ of you.” With one hand, Geralt gestured back toward the lake, toward the others.

“Yes,” Regis agreed, lashes soft over his wide black eyes. “I was forced to show you Tesham Mutna. I wanted...wanted you to see something beautiful in my people as well. We have done horrible things, and some of us still do, but we have much to offer that is beautiful, too.”

“Of course.” Geralt pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Regis’s fanged mouth. “Now show me the rest. Show me you.” 

“Are you sure?” Regis asked, as if Geralt could have come _ here, _ heard _ that _ song, danced _ that _ dance, and not been sure. 

“Yes,” was all Geralt said. He took first one wrist and then the other, easing Regis’s gloves off until his slender hands were bared to the moon. Geralt dropped the gloves onto the grass and pressed two gentle fingertips into the naked skin beneath. “Come on. Let me see you.”

Regis obliged him by undoing the fastenings of his clothes, stepping out of them piece by piece as Geralt watched. When Regis stood bare, the leaves above them dappling his skin with the soft light, he rolled his neck, spread out his arms, and changed. 

His fingers lengthened, soft skin growing down between them. Flesh ruffled up from the edges of his lips and nose. Regis shivered as his hair grew down his back and belly, soft and glittering in rippling waves like wind on wheat. His normally thin shoulders spread, broadening into thick muscle to support the massive wingspan. 

When it was done, Regis flexed first one wing and then the next, stretching the translucent skin. Each limb was longer than Geralt was tall. 

The overpowering thought in Geralt’s mind was that he wished he could see this in sunlight. Even his Witcher’s eyes could not possibly give him enough of this. 

But when he moved closer, Regis gave a tiny flinch. Geralt stopped himself. 

“No?” he asked. 

Regis looked very vulnerable as he curled a wing around his body to cover himself. 

“Are you sure,” Regis asked again, and now his voice rumbled from his deeper ribcage. 

Geralt smiled. “Of course I’m sure.”

He moved forward and this time Regis stayed still. His fur was silky-soft when Geralt laid his hand along Regis’s jaw. The blood groove in Regis’s bottom lip was smooth and plush when Geralt kissed it. And when Geralt trailed his mouth up the thin ridges of cartilage that made up Regis’s nose, Regis let out a long sigh. 

The wing covering Regis’s body lifted aside, pulling Geralt into its place. The thin touch of the membrane along Geralt’s forearm made him shiver. The massive claws of Regis’s thumbs slotted neatly behind his ears.

Geralt had often been wrapped in a lover’s embrace before, but never so completely that the skin of it covered him from shoulder to ankle. Perhaps he ought to have felt afraid as Regis nuzzled along his throat and let out a deep rasping purr, but Geralt merely closed his eyes and tipped up his chin. He felt Regis breathe against him, inhaling his scent and maybe even his taste. He wondered what Regis’s senses made of him. Could Regis smell the warmth of Geralt’s arousal? For once, it was a slow, peaceable sensation, neither urgent nor demanding--just the readiness for this, whatever this was, to go on happening. 

“You don’t smell afraid. Or angry, or disgusted.” The leaf-shape of Regis’s nose pressed to Geralt’s throat again, cool air drawn between them as Regis inhaled. “You really...you really do want this, don’t you,” Regis whispered, sounding shocked. “You really love me.”

“Why is that such a surprise?” Geralt asked. 

“Because for such a long time I didn’t deserve it, and so many of my people still don’t,” Regis answered. “We were not made for this world. Our bodies were created for a world with six moons, not one, and to drink blood that is nothing like the mortal blood found here. I thought of this place I’d been born into as an empty, miserable mistake in which the best I and my peers could hope for was hedonism rather than true belonging. I was surrounded with humans whose bodies and lives were so different from mine. First I told myself that they were ugly and worthless for being unlike me, and then, in my remorse and shame, that _ I _ was, for being made in a way that had made me susceptible to hurting them. Even now, after all that has happened, it is still strange to think that perhaps neither is true.”

Geralt said nothing to this at first, only nodding against one long ear. He understood regret and guilt. The skin of Regis’s wings stretched taut over Geralt’s shoulders as he took a deep breath and kissed Regis’s mouth again--a mouth that was shaped not for kissing but for the drinking of blood. But it was, nonetheless, willing and alive to Geralt’s touch. 

“I was designed for violence,” Geralt confessed when he pulled away and laid their foreheads together. His chest ached with the truth of it. This was why he’d been so desperate that he’d made the wish with Yennefer, trying to change or deny his fate. “What else is a Witcher for beyond killing monsters? At eleven they remade me in blood and death. And this year I killed two Witchers who lost themselves to their anger and selfishness.”

A startled noise escaped Regis at that. His wings tightened around Geralt--which was when Geralt realized that, in a way, Regis was holding all of Geralt in his hands. 

“I had no idea.”

“It’s not something I want to talk about. But it means that I...that I understand, I think, where you’re coming from. When you’re powerful, when you’re made to be a predator, when the society you were raised in tells you that you’re not good for anything else--it’s easy for some people to let that become all they are. It’s easy for me to imagine myself having gone that way. Maybe I would have, if not for...” 

He swallowed, remembering Eskel’s words about being alone and unwanted: _ You grow desperate. Your own mind becomes your enemy. You start thinking vile things, like how easy it would be to use Axii on that handsome man in the last village you passed through, because you so badly miss being touched and held and if you can’t be _ wanted _ then you can at least have that. Then you get angry and disgusted at yourself. At the world. At everything. The exhaustion cuts deeper than ever before because there is nothing and no one to hold you through the hard times. Hope becomes your enemy. You hate even the idea of hope, because wanting things to be better someday has hurt you over and over and over again and you are so fucking tired. _

Wasn’t that what had happened to Regis, too? Regis had said, once, that he’d been anxious and isolated when he began his addiction. Caught between worlds, uncertain how to connect to his kin and unable to connect to humans. And unlike Eskel, Regis’s whole culture had been telling him that it was his _ right _ to use humans for his amusement, to take what he wanted and feel no doubt as he did so. Yet Regis had dragged himself out of that, and had done it while still alone. 

“If not for Eskel,” Geralt admitted at last. “I had the fortune of knowing there was always someone waiting for me, loving me. Without that, who knows what I would have done.”

This time Regis tilted his head so that the groove in his bottom lip molded perfectly around Geralt’s own. It was a kiss no other creature could offer, and Geralt marveled at this sweet, small way their bodies fit together.


	62. Under the Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this chapter was also difficult to write. But it's done, and hopefully it's ok! Have some incredibly explicit rimming, monsterfucking, and blood-drinking. 
> 
> Content warning: there's a section in which a character is not perfect at establishing clear consent before doing something fairly intense and consciousness-altering. Nobody is harmed or upset and everybody has a good time, but it's not what I'd call flawless consent practice. Just a heads-up.

One kiss led to another and another as Geralt traced Regis’s intimidating fangs with his tongue. Geralt wrapped his arms around Regis’s neck to close the small space between their bodies. Geralt’s cock, trapped below layers of cloth, strained against Regis’s belly. Regis slid against Geralt’s thigh. 

Finally Geralt leaned away the little he could in the circle of Regis’s wings, unable to wait any longer. “Anything you want,” he promised, “so long as it happens soon.”

This got him a rasping laugh. 

“Anything I want? Perhaps you ought to undress, then.” With that, Regis opened his wings. 

Geralt shivered in the sudden dispersion of his cradled body heat. He stepped reluctantly away, unbuttoning the placket of his breeches before untucking his shirt. With quick, practiced movements he unbuckled his boots, setting them aside and then looking around for a comfortable spot to lay down. When he found one, a flat patch of grass at the foot of a tree, he spread his shirt and breeches there and laid down atop them. 

Regis dropped to all fours as he stalked forward. A second shiver went through Geralt, this one of anticipation. 

He had seen gaits like this in cockatrices and basilisks and had stood sword at the ready as they approached him. But this time, when sweat prickled along Geralt’s hairline and his heart thumped under his breastbone, it wasn’t out of concern for his wellbeing. Instead he lifted one knee, further exposing the bright white thatch between his thighs and showing off his eager erection. 

“Look at you,” Regis crooned as he loomed over Geralt. “A pretty little Witcher, all for me.”

“Yes,” Geralt agreed again, smiling.

Regis bent his thick neck, passing his nose over the planes of Geralt’s belly. Thin hairs tickled over the sensitive skin and Geralt squirmed. 

“I can feel the heat of you,” Regis said at last. “The pulsing vessels below your skin.” He kissed at the crease between thigh and body, right over where Geralt’s femoral artery lay. 

“I can think of a few places I’m nice and warm,” Geralt replied, smiling, and pulled the other leg up as well.

“Can you now.” 

Regis’s long, agile tongue slithered out of the groove on his bottom lip and along the crest of Geralt’s hip, teasing. For a moment Regis opened his mouth wide, running the sharp edges of his teeth along the sides of the shaft. Geralt’s balls tightened as he stared in mixed anxiety and delight at the sight of his delicate parts in such peril, though of course Regis wouldn’t actually hurt him. He let out a groan of relief when Regis instead withdrew and trailed his tongue up the underside of Geralt’s cock. 

Regis licked at him, one slow pass after another. His tongue was grooved along its length, the texture strange. The inhuman nature of that pleased Geralt so much that all he could do was lie there and remind himself to breathe.

Regis shifted his weight onto one wing, hooking the long, clawed thumb of the other wing behind Geralt’s knee. It pushed Geralt’s thigh up to his chest and left him even more exposed. 

That was when Geralt realized exactly where this was going. In Beauclair seven years ago, whenever Fringilla Vigo hadn’t been demanding Geralt’s time and Regis wasn’t sleeping with his succubus friend, Regis and Geralt had spent a great deal of time in bed. Regis had seemed to like all the things they did together, but burying his face between Geralt’s legs had clearly been his favorite. Now his flat, frilled nose brushed down behind Geralt’s balls and Geralt’s cock jumped in anticipatory delight, recalling all those happy memories. 

Regis had always been bold about this. His nose didn’t perceive odors in the same way a human’s would, and he could not catch human diseases any more than Geralt could, so Regis had none of the human reasons to abstain. Geralt had done this for Yennefer and still did it for for Eskel sometimes. And while Geralt enjoyed doing it, even he didn’t have the passion for it that Regis did.

Geralt would have loved doing this solely because of how much Regis liked it. The fact that it felt amazing was an added bonus. 

“Yes,” Geralt pleaded. For several intolerable moments Regis merely sat and breathed his fill, scenting the musk of Geralt’s body in its most private place. Then Geralt was rewarded by a soft, wet touch to his entrance. 

Over his long span of years only a few brave lovers had ever done this to Geralt. A human tongue was warmer, but as the pointed tip breached Geralt and pushed inside, he couldn’t think of anything more perfect than the shameless way Regis lapped right into him. 

When Regis began to purr, though--_that_ was better. It rumbled through Regis's mouth, through the wet cleft of his lip as it slid against Geralt’s tailbone, all the way up inside Geralt.

His hands clenched into fists. A desperate whine escaped him. He tried to slow himself down, to wait and not embarrass himself like a teenage boy, but it was already too late. He came fast and hard, pulsing around Regis’s tongue, overwhelmed by the way he could feel his own body move around that lush intrusion. 

“Beautiful,” Regis crooned, withdrawing and letting Geralt’s leg drop to his side. “You amaze me. Not only to come here, but to allow me this--”

“Allow? I’d _ pay _ for this if I could,” Geralt admitted. “I’ll _ allow _ anything you want.” 

Geralt grinned as he looked Regis up and down--which was when he caught sight of the shape protruding from the darker fur of Regis’s belly. 

In Regis’s usual vampire form his cock remained relatively human. It was speckled and a darker grey than the rest of his skin, and the head was a little more elongated than normal, but that was all that differentiated it from Geralt’s own. What he now saw, however, was not only spotted but also covered in small...spines? Geralt blinked at it and then sat up, reaching down one sweaty hand to cup the shaft. 

The tenor of Regis’s purring changed, tightening into a higher octave. 

The protrusions were soft and flexible to the touch and contained no hidden barbs. By feel, they were either spongy erectile tissue or very soft cartilage. Some monsters had _ actual _ spikes on or in their genitals, designed to fix them together with their mate until they finished. Geralt would have been forced to draw the line at that. But this...this was going to feel incredible. 

“Well come on then,” Geralt encouraged. He touched his thumb to the tip where Regis had pearled, spreading the slick around and fascinated by the heady smell of it. 

Yet Regis nuzzled into Geralt’s neck as though hiding his face. Tentative, Geralt dropped his handful and raised his arms, running his fingers through the fur behind Regis’s ears. 

“Something wrong?”

“No, nothing.” Regis’s purr intensified as if to prove this, loud from this close. “You’re just making me wistful. That you'd even offer is truly remarkable. But it won’t work unless you brought something--”

“I did,” Geralt interrupted. 

This earned him a rumbly laugh.

“You planned ahead for this, did you? I suppose I really must admit that all my worrying was for nothing.”

“Coulda told you that any time,” Geralt said, and pulled open his satchel to bring out the tin of slick. He dipped two fingers into it, drawing out a thick dollop of the stuff before reaching down to apply it to Regis. The way the spines slid against his palm had Geralt panting in expectation. He’d be raw inside for days after this, but he didn’t care. Some things were worth a little pain. And some things were even enhanced by it. 

He used the remaining slick on his hand to sweep between his legs, dipping just inside. His own fingers were nothing like as satisfying as anything Regis might do, so Geralt lay back down as soon as he could. He braced his feet on Regis’s shoulders as Regis moved up into place. As Regis did not exactly have hands free, Geralt reached down to guide Regis into place. He notched into the entrance and Geralt could already barely breathe, nodding to give the go-ahead.

The big muscles of Regis’s shoulders shifted as he leaned forward. 

“Oh fuck,” Geralt whispered. The texture of the thing was all slick sweetness going in, but when Regis pulled back even the tiniest amount, Geralt could feel every single one of those soft little shapes popping out of him, brushing against the tender skin at the opening as they went. “Fuck, Regis!”

“Eloquent as ever,” Regis mocked, but he looked rather overcome himself, and his voice wavered.

Geralt wondered how long it had been since anyone had wanted Regis in this form--if anyone ever had. Surely someone must have? With the remnants of Geralt’s brain that were left over around the all-encompassing sensation as Regis set to work, Geralt noticed that in this shape, most of the power of Regis’s movements came not from his hips and thighs but from his shoulders and wings. He only used his legs to brace and position himself correctly. 

Then Geralt stopped thinking much at all. His second climax of the night built just as fast as the first and this time he was beyond caring about what anyone else might think of his pace. He clutched at Regis’s neck, fingers buried in the silky fur, and came helplessly all over himself. 

Regis purred and purred. Geralt felt it in his calves as his toes curled by Regis’s ears. He felt it in his hands as his knuckles pressed into Regis’s neck. And he felt it resonating through his skull, overwhelming from this close. 

He loved it all. He loved Regis.

By the time Regis came, purr stuttering and interrupted by a deep, heartfelt moan, Geralt was dizzy from so many peaks in a row. When Regis withdrew, Geralt became suddenly aware of the deep throbbing tenderness where Regis had been. 

He’d _definitely_ be feeling this tomorrow. 

Regis gave him a mischievous smile as he backed away. With one wrist he nudged at Geralt's hip till Geralt took the hint and turned over. With mixed resignation and delight Geralt got his shaking knees under himself. He knew exactly what Regis intended. Again. 

The return of Regis’s tongue was mixed torture and balm on the sore flesh. Now thoroughly opened up, Geralt’s body offered no resistance whatsoever as Regis delved inside, drawing his own spend back out bit by bit. 

Geralt shuddered, mind a buzzing maelstrom of overstimulation. He could only be thankful he’d not only had the forethought to bring the slick but to clean himself out inside beforehand, or he’d have felt too mortified to allow this. As it was, he shoved a hand down between his thighs, circling his own tip until together they coaxed one final, exhausted release from Geralt. 

Regis purred all the while. 

“Marvellous,” he declared, walking up to Geralt’s side and laying a kiss against Geralt’s overheated and sweaty shoulder blade. “Would it be terribly crass of me to say that I fancy a flight after our adventures? Because there is enough moon left for me to go aloft for a while, and it has been too long since I allowed myself the pleasure.”

But then his head snapped up, staring into the trees. Just as Geralt started to wonder if he should be concerned enough to get into a more dignified position, Regis relaxed again. Geralt pushed himself up onto one arm anyway--and saw the bruxa from earlier leaning against a tree, looking at him with a grin. A second later Dettlaff appeared by her side, looking irritated. When his eyes traveled over Geralt and Regis, however, his face relaxed into a softer expression. 

“Tifane, you know better than to spy on me,” Regis grumbled. 

“And you should know better than to keep a tender morsel to yourself for so long,” she shot back. “If you’re going flying, you should let someone else have a taste.”

“Can’t anymore,” Geralt stated bluntly. He was flattered that she’d forgiven him enough for that, but he simply couldn’t. Few partners could truly wear him out the way Regis could, and while Geralt was still half-hard, it was in the swollen, subsiding way that meant his body was well and truly done. 

“She means to drink from you, not have sex,” Regis clarified with another kiss to Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt remembered the conversation from earlier. “I’m surprised you didn’t think to bring your own human, if you’re so eager to imbibe,” Regis said to her.

“I can have human blood anytime I want,” Tifane replied. “Witcher blood, though--that’s a rare delicacy.”

Flopping onto his back, half-missing his clothes and landing mostly in the cool grass, Geralt stared up at the stars he could see through the leaves above. 

“Will it upset you if I do?” Geralt asked Regis, running one trembling finger along the thick fur where Regis’s sideburns normally lay. Now his facial hair had merged into the coat on his neck to form a ruff similar to those on ekkimarae and katakans. 

For several long moments Regis considered this question. Geralt thought he looked almost sad. But then one corner of his mouth quirked up and he lifted his eyebrows in an expression of amusement. 

“You’re determined to have the full vampire experience tonight, aren’t you. Well, I shall not allow my limitations to keep you from it. Will you still be here when I get back, or will you be going back to Corvo Bianco?”

“I’ll be here,” Geralt promised, and then closed his eyes as Regis nuzzled along his cheekbone and forehead. 

“Enjoy yourself,” Regis murmured, and paused with their faces close. For several long, long seconds he regarded Geralt, and Geralt was sure Regis would change his mind, ask Geralt not to allow anyone to partake in his blood since Regis himself could not. 

“I love you too,” Regis whispered instead, and pushed himself up onto his feet again. 

Before Geralt could say anything to this, Regis lept into the sky with a massive rush of air. Geralt followed the dark shape with his eyes for several moments before it vanished above the trees. 

So he turned his gaze on Dettlaff and Tifane instead. Distantly he wondered if he should at least put his underthings and breeches back on, but he was too sore and exhausted to do it right now. So he just beckoned them over. 

Tifane knelt eagerly at Geralt’s side while Dettlaff came forward and seated himself near Geralt’s head at a much more sedate pace. They were both barefoot, and Dettlaff made no sound at all as he moved.

But then something occurred to Geralt in a cold rush. If Eskel ever _did_ decide he loved Dettlaff in return, he would not be pleased to discover that Geralt had been intimate with him first--even if it was only in the form of Dettlaff drinking from Geralt. 

“Dettlaff,” Geralt started, and then realized he didn’t know how to phrase this. He discarded option after option as Tifane looked him up and down, eyes shining in the dark, before Geralt finally settled on the least-awkward thing his muzzy brain could come up with. “I don’t want to intrude on what’s happening between you and Eskel.”

When Dettlaff’s eyes went wide, Geralt realized that this had not even occurred to Dettlaff as any kind of problem. 

“Do you think he would ever let me do this with him?” Dettlaff asked, husky voice painfully excited. “Sometimes when he speaks to me I think he might return my feelings, but I never thought to hope--”

Geralt lay a pacifying hand on Dettlaff’s knee and he fell silent. 

“I don’t know,” Geralt told him honestly. “But just in case, I think it would be best if only Tifane drinks from me. I’m told that this can be, uh. Intimate.”

Tifane smiled. Dettlaff only looked puzzled. 

“I don’t understand. Why would he not want you to give this to me?”

Geralt thought he should probably sit up to explain this, but he didn’t have the energy or the willpower to care. He just hoped he didn’t say the wrong thing. 

“I don’t know how it is for you, but a lot of humans consider first times to be special. Your first time ever doing something, or your first time with someone new. So I think if either of us is going to do anything with you, Eskel would be happier if he got to be the first.”

“Oh. I wish he was the first human to ever be my mate. What I had with Rhena felt very special, until it didn’t.” 

Geralt wouldn’t have wanted to respond to that even if he hadn’t just been fucked to within an inch of his life, so he said nothing. 

Tifane laid a cool hand on Geralt’s belly, tracing one of the sets of claw-scars there. The one she was examining had come from a werewolf. Tifane’s own claws caught just slightly on one of the raised marks. 

“Doesn’t that mean you’d want your first time at this to be with Regis?” Dettlaff asked then.

Geralt considered lying but that felt wrong. So he settled for honesty, figuring that if it upset Regis if he heard about it later, they could talk it out together. 

“Yes,” Geralt said simply. “But he can’t do this with me. So someone in his pack, especially with you present, is enough for me.”

Dettlaff nodded at this. Then he wrapped one hand under Geralt’s neck, cradling his nape. 

“I will make sure it won’t hurt,” Dettlaff said. He looked determined. Just as Geralt looked up at him questioningly, a wave of bliss suffused Geralt from head to toe. 

It was like being hit with a brick, but a very luxurious brick. Or like being suddenly dropped into a pool of good feelings from a height. Geralt went limp all over. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled eloquently, head spinning even more now. Why hadn’t someone like Dettlaff ever been there for Geralt during any of the times he’d been seriously injured? Geralt’s past self was jealous of his current self. He could have used this so often. Witchers were injured a lot. 

“Is this all right?” Dettlaff asked. 

Geralt stared up at him. Dettlaff's vampire form wasn't handsome in the ways humans usually thought of handsomeness, but it was sweet and gentle as it looked at Geralt. Now that Geralt was feeling so extremely good, he really hoped Eskel fell in love with Dettlaff. It would do Eskel some good to have a face like that (and a face as beautiful as that of Dettlaff's human form) wanting to give Eskel everything he ever wanted. 

“‘S great,” Geralt slurred. 

“Where do you want me to bite?” Tifane asked. 

Geralt tried to consider this through the fog of warmth and pleasure. He’d already survived having his neck mauled once, and that had been awful. He really would have loved it if Dettlaff had been there to help him with that. So while maybe necks were traditional, Geralt found that he didn’t like that idea. 

“Not m’neck.” He considered his various other body parts. There seemed to be an awful lot of them. As far as Geralt knew he had good blood flow in all of them. “Chest?” he said at last, simply because it was nearby.

“Mm,” Tifane hummed. Then she bent down, wrapped her mouth around one of his nipples, and sank her teeth into his flesh. 

Or at least, Geralt supposed that had to be what she did. All Geralt felt was an enticing pressure where he was sensitive. 

In that moment the fact that she was the one biting him seemed like the cosmos realigning itself. Geralt and Eskel had hurt Tifane because none of them had known they were on the same side. They had spilled her blood in what they hadn’t known yet would be their home. Maybe her blood had blessed Corvo Bianco for them! Now, Tifane was taking _his_ blood in exchange. That seemed right. 

Muzzily Geralt wondered if Tifane had scars from their first encounter. He didn’t think vampires scarred. He wondered if _ he’d _ have scars from this encounter. If it did scar, it’d probably be one of the nicest things to ever leave a mark on him. He found he liked the idea almost as much as he liked Dettlaff and Tifane. Tifane had taught him how to vampire-dance even though almost nobody wanted to dance with Witchers, and Dettlaff was vampire-married to Eskel, and both of those things were wonderful. 

Eventually Tifane withdrew. Geralt's chest went right on feeling lovely. Something trickled down his side. Dettlaff gently blotted it with the sleeve of Geralt’s shirt, which he was still only half lying on. 

Geralt drifted for a while until finally he heard wings, and then something big landed beside him. When Geralt looked up, he saw it was Regis. 

“Regis, you c'n fly,” Geralt informed him, because that seemed significant. “Thass'amazing. I love you.”

Regis let out a rough little chuckle, shaking his head. And then he was human again, bending down to pick up his clothes nearby. Geralt thought it was a pity that Regis wasn’t going to be naked anymore. 

“You’ve always had a heavy hand,” Regis said to Dettlaff. “How long has he been like this?” 

“About an hour,” Dettlaff answered, his face too shifting back to human, and even his voice was beautiful. It was really unfair how handsome he was. But not unfair, because Eskel deserved nice things. Such nice things. 

“I think it’s time to let him out of it, then,” Regis said. 

Dettlaff took his hand from underneath Geralt’s neck. Before Geralt could think to miss it, it was as though he surfaced from deep underwater. He blinked up at Regis, who was settling his tunic onto his shoulders, and realized that Dettlaff had enthralled him. 

“If I ever get cut up again, please come do that,” he said, sitting up. Now he wasn’t freshly-fucked or actively high anymore, he found he wanted his clothes back. He stood, pulling his underwear on as Regis was sliding into his own leggings. When he checked his chest, there were two tidy fang marks and a little dried blood and that was all. 

“Certainly,” Dettlaff agreed, as if it was nothing. “I’m going to leave now,” he said, and then he vanished. Tifane grinned and then she too disappeared.

Regis only looked fond. “He’s not very good at goodbyes. How are you feeling?”

Geralt gave this some thought as he finished dressing himself. 

Now that he’d actually had the experience, Geralt knew he would have liked it even better if it had been with Regis. But it couldn’t be, not now and probably not ever in Geralt’s lifespan. So with that as a given, he was glad it had happened as it did. 

“Good,” he said with a decisive nod. “Really good. Thank you for all of this.”

“You enjoyed yourself?” Regis asked, ducking his chin and looking uncertain. Apparently he was back to being diffident again now he had returned to human form and the festivities were over. 

Geralt went over to Regis and took his hand. He pulled Regis in the direction of the lake; Geralt needed to wash before he went home to Eskel. 

“I can’t remember a better night out than this one.”

“Given how much you’ve experienced, I shall take that as a very high mark of approval indeed.”

Regis stayed to talk to Geralt as he bathed. He rambled on as he walked Geralt home, too, and only stopped when Geralt kissed him goodbye at the gate to Corvo Bianco.

“Thank you,” Geralt repeated when he drew away. For a moment he wished he were mesmerized again--it had been so easy to say what he'd meant when he’d felt that peaceful. But easy or not, he forced himself to repeat his other words too: “I love you, Regis.”

“I love you, too,” Regis said quietly, and then with a little wave and a shy smile, he faded into the dawn light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ain't no party like a vampire party, apparently. Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Or at least mesmerism and eerie monster music. 
> 
> I legit got stuck on what kind of dick to give Regis. Some species of bats have downright human-looking dicks, at least according to the google image search. That wasn't what I wanted when setting out to write monsterfucking. Meanwhile, some species have spiked dicks, and that seemed more interesting. But unlike the nice version I gave Regis here, IRL they actually do have vicious little barbs. I will freely admit that the inspiration for soft, flexible dick-spikes came not only from weird zoology but specifically the weird zoology in [this MCU Steve/Bucky fic right here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/445549). So if you're in the mood for reading more about spiked dicks, you can go check that out.


	63. Graves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally meant all of the remaining content to be one final, long chapter, but I found as I was editing it that it could be easily broken into a few smaller ones. All the rest of the chapters will go up today!

The next morning, the news came that Syanna had been sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest. Geralt felt pity for Dettlaff at this; he could not now leave Toussaint, not if he wished to have either Eskel or Regis at his side, but nor would he wish to stay so near to Syanna in the place he’d been forced into violence. 

But aside from that, the news reminded Geralt that there was something he needed to do. So that same morning, Geralt went to Beauclair. 

First he stopped by the stall of a flower-seller. He bought a few of the bright orange poppies he remembered Milton once mentioning he liked. And then Geralt went to Milton’s grave. 

The Duchess had spared no expense in seeing him interred. His tomb was beautiful, and it was clear that many others had come here before Geralt. A variety of footsteps led into and out of the crypt, and flowers of all levels of fresh and dying lay everywhere. Lit candles burned here too, as if someone came and refreshed them several times a day. 

Geralt set the poppies beside the tapers and seated himself at the grave. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from Syanna,” he said into the silence. “Maybe you’re angry at me for helping Dettlaff. Maybe you want him dead too. But I like to hope that as much as anyone can have real justice after everything that happened, it’s been had. I hope that’s enough to let you rest easy.”

Staring into the flames as they burned steadily in the still, quiet room, Geralt sighed. 

“Maybe you’d understand why both of them are still alive now,” he went on. “Maybe you regretted what you did--what you allowed to happen--to Syanna. I want to believe that you changed after that. That you felt disgust and changed like Regis did. I know that, at least while I knew you, you seemed like a good man who truly wanted to help those less capable. And you helped me, and Eskel too, by accepting us. For that you have my thanks.”

For most of an hour Geralt sat, thoughts slow-moving and mournful. 

Vesemir had no grave like this. He didn’t need one, that wasn’t the Witcher way. It was already a blessing that he’d gotten to die so close to those he loved, and that those same people had all still been alive to see him burned and his ashes scattered near his beloved Kaer Morhen. 

But Geralt had no idea how Vesemir would have felt if he could have known Kaer Morhen would soon be used by a different school of Witchers. Would he have been relieved? Or would he have despaired to know that yet again, more children would undergo the Trials there? Had Geralt failed Vesemir by allowing Letho to have the keep?

Worse still, the question remained in Geralt's mind of how Vesemir would have felt about Geralt and Eskel's life in Toussaint. Would he have been happy to know that they had found a home? Or would he have been disappointed and angry that they had left the Path?

Geralt thought of the lamp Keira had given him whose light revealed the shapes of the restless dead and allowed them to speak. He thought of bringing it here. He thought of bringing it to Kaer Morhen. He thought of asking his questions, of seeking those answers. 

Instead Geralt rose and laid a final hand on Milton’s grave, fingertips resting in the grooves that formed Milton’s name. 

“I hope you had the blessing of regret,” Geralt said. “I hope you died a good man.”

Some questions were better left unanswered. 


	64. Thrall

Time passed. Artisans came to repair and repaint the houses of Corvo Bianco, to inspect the vines and orchard and replant and prune as necessary, and also to build a new bed. It was the finest bed Geralt had ever slept in, not just because it had been built exactly to his and Eskel’s specifications, but because it contained Eskel. 

Then one day, Eskel returned from visiting Dettlaff smelling of soap with his hair still wet. Geralt knew at once what that meant. 

A dim roar filled Geralt’s mind. He went outside to where he and Eskel had begun an herb garden. For weeks during their walks in the countryside, he and Regis had been assembling seeds for it, and those they could not find themselves they had ordered through the alchemist in Beauclair. Geralt spent hazy hours breaking earth, hauling water, and planting seeds until nightfall took away the relief of being out in the sun. 

He came indoors to find Eskel helping Marlene lay out dinner. Geralt ate mechanically, tasting little of it.

Finally Eskel laid a hand over Geralt’s, stopping him. Geralt couldn’t force himself to look anywhere but at his own plate. His other hand curled so tight in his lap that his fingernails dug into his palm. 

“Feels like shit, doesn’t it,” Eskel said. “But I’m starting to believe that you’re really gonna stay with me despite having someone else. So you’ll have to figure out how to believe it too.”

Pulling his hand away, Geralt rubbed at his face and then sighed when it didn’t make him feel any better. After a moment he took Eskel’s hand again since it was still there. 

“I know. I’m sorry. You’ve put up with this from me so many different ways for so long.”

“Yes, I have.”

“I want you to be happy,” Geralt said then, because it was true and he needed to remind himself of it. “Even if it’s with him. Maybe especially with him. You both deserve it.”

Eskel nodded. He didn’t say anything else. 

But he slept beside Geralt that night, and the night after (when he again came home freshly washed), and the night after that. 

By the end of the week, at least some of the newness of the fear had worn off. 

The next day, Damien de la Tour sent messengers for them to come clear out a massive network of tunnels some landowner had found underneath her estate when she’d been trying to expand her cellars. So Geralt and Eskel donned their swords and armor, mixed up Cat potions, and cleared out a truly staggering array of kikimores, arachas, and even a mated pair of shaelmaar. 

By the time they returned to Corvo Bianco, Geralt had two broken fingers, Eskel’s left eye had swollen shut, and they were both covered in dried blood, a significant amount of which was theirs. They’d both drunk healing potions already, but they needed more to fully recover.

They found Dettlaff pacing in their front hall while Regis sat and read in the dining room, so Regis’s ravens must have delivered news of them. The horrified expression Dettlaff made at the sight of Eskel’s state made it obvious that Dettlaff felt like all his worst fears had just been confirmed. Thankfully Barnabas-Basil was in the kitchen, because Dettlaff’s human face slipped. 

Eskel rolled his one visible eye, hanging his swords on the rack by the door and starting on unbuckling Geralt’s armor. Because of the broken fingers, Geralt couldn’t do it himself. 

“I’m fine,” Eskel told Dettlaff, who hovered nearby, practically vibrating with his distress. “There’s no reason to fuss.”

Regis came into the doorway. He had seen Geralt in much worse states than this one, so he regarded Geralt with a weather eye and merely nodded, satisfied that Geralt wasn’t dead. 

"Would you like any help with the pain?" Regis asked, and when Eskel looked confused, Regis explained, "For obvious reasons, we are particularly adept at convincing human brains that they are not in any pain, and are indeed feeling rather lovely instead."

At this Eskel gave Dettlaff a thoughtful look. Geralt just grinned, delighted at the knowledge that Regis had remembered what he'd said on the full moon. He beckoned Regis over. 

"Come on then. These broken fingers feel pretty bad."

Regis curled two fingers under Geralt's chin. He looked into Geralt's eyes as the sweet softness of his thrall stole over him. The thudding pain in Geralt's hand vanished, leaving only a calm awareness that it was damaged. All the other little pains faded too, replaced by a blissful relaxation--but this time, unlike with Dettlaff, Geralt remained otherwise clear-headed. 

"Wow," he breathed. "That's incredible."

"You'll have to be careful," Regis said, not removing his touch. "Now you can't feel the pain, it would be easy to move too roughly and cause further damage."

"Can you only do this if you're touching me?" Geralt asked, curious. 

"Oh, no. It's just easiest to calibrate that way. Now I'm only here because I like touching you."

This got Geralt to smile. 

Eskel turned to Dettlaff, looking intrigued, but Dettlaff shifted around in embarrassment. 

"I will if you want, of course, I want to help, but...I'm not as good at this as Regis is. You won't be capable of doing much beyond sitting around and maybe eating dinner if _I_ make you feel better."

Eskel smiled too. "Sounds like a nice night in to me, but thanks for warning me. So, let's make it an experiment: give me a taste of it and then stop. I'll make my decision from there."

Nodding and eager to be allowed, Dettlaff wrapped his hand around Eskel's nape, just as he'd done with Geralt on the full moon.

Geralt saw Eskel's expression change a split second before his knees buckled. Dettlaff caught him neatly before he hit the ground, supporting him with one hand under his back, gazing into Eskel's face with worshipful attention. A moment later Eskel inhaled sharply, gaze refocusing. 

"Shit. You were _not_ kidding. That's a helluva thing."

He stood up again out of Dettlaff's arms. 

"I'll let Regis take care of me for tonight. But you," he said, pointing a finger at Dettlaff, "are gonna do that to me some other time in private."

A statement like that would have normally made Geralt feel anxious, but for now, Regis's help prevented it. So Geralt watched as Regis took Eskel's hand, businesslike, and a moment later released it. Eskel nodded his approval. 

"Thank you."

Regis turned back to Geralt. “Any ingredients you need for your potions?” he asked. 

Geralt shook his head. He crossed to the cupboard where he and Eskel kept their expanding collection of herbs and potions and took out what he needed. Even the horrendous taste of the slow-healing brew that would help mend his bones and ligaments was softened by what Regis had done. He still gulped it down quickly. 

When he shut the cupboard, though, Dettlaff's expression tightened again. 

"Nothing for you?" he asked Eskel. 

"It's just a black eye and some small cuts. Nothing serious. Swelling will go down by the time I have to sleep."

“Will you be doing this again?” Dettlaff demanded then, looking even more distraught. "Going out and getting injured like this?"

Normally, Geralt thought, this question would have pissed Eskel off. But perhaps he too was calmed by Regis's touch in his mind. 

So Eskel merely returned to Geralt's side to finish helping him out of his armor, hanging it on its own stand before answering the question. 

“Of course I'll do this again. I’m a Witcher.”

Geralt took pity on Dettlaff. Geralt understood the terror that came from knowing that the one you loved might go out into battle and never come back. He had lived through too many winters in which fewer and fewer men had returned to Kaer Morhen. There had been too many decades fearing that next year it might be Eskel he never saw again.

“Stay for dinner,” Geralt offered. “If you can get your face together, maybe Barnabas-Basil and Marlene could use help in the kitchen.”

Dettlaff looked relieved at having something to do. It took him several seconds to fully force himself back into human form, and he had to look at Regis to do it, but he managed. 

It perhaps should not have surprised anyone that Dettlaff’s distress drew lesser vampires to the estate. Dinner itself was interrupted by the call of ekkimarae from the roof, and the garkains showed up in the cellar shortly after. The two species chattered to each other for the rest of the evening, one from above and the other from below. 

When dinner had been cleared away and Dettlaff showed signs that he'd go right on hovering over Eskel if allowed, Regis informed Dettlaff that they really ought to return to their own home. 

"What I've done will last until about halfway through the night," Regis told the two Witchers. "After that, if you wish me to repeat it, you'll have to come visit me in the graveyard."

Geralt nodded, waving the vampires off. Regis vanished first. With one final longing look at Eskel, Dettlaff did too. 

The ekkimarae went with him, jumping softly down from the roof and trotting away to the south. The garkains stayed. That was, perhaps, Dettlaff’s way of ensuring Eskel’s safety. 

All of it made Geralt smile. And even the next morning, healing fingers aching, Geralt found it difficult to feel jealous of Eskel having a lover who fussed over him like a brooding hen. 

Both Eskel and Geralt sought out more contracts after that. They also began sparring with each other every morning. A break from active combat was a delicious treat, and neither of them wished to truly return to the Path, but nor did they wish to go soft in their retirement. Not when the Duchess had brought them here expressly for killing monsters. 

Perhaps their Path could be a small one, winding its way around Toussaint. 


	65. The Imperial Wedding

One fine morning in the middle of spring, letters arrived from the imperial capital: Ciri’s coronation would be in another two months, and both Geralt and Eskel were expected to attend. Ciri’s wedding to Morvran Voorhis would take place the same day.

Geralt immediately wrote to both Yoana and Yennefer. A fine set of Witcher’s armor would make a suitable wedding present for an Empress who was also a Witcher, and Yennefer would be able to get Ciri’s measurements without spoiling the surprise. 

At the announcement of the Witchers’ intended trip south, Regis decided that it was time for himself and Dettlaff to return to Nazair to settle Dettlaff’s affairs there. If they meant to stay here in Toussaint--which they clearly did, no matter Dettlaff’s mixed feelings on the place--they needed to bring the rest of Dettlaff’s pack, close up the house there, and find a more permanent residence in Toussaint. The crypt wasn’t big enough to hold the number of vampires who often visited it, and the amount of sex occurring there was increasingly disrespectful to the dead. They really might wind up with a haunting if it kept up. 

Dettlaff clearly hated the idea of letting Eskel out of his sight for more than a few days, and was miserable at the parting, but at least he would get to see the rest of his family again. 

So the four of them went their separate ways. The ride to the capital took the better part of a month. Witchers rarely came this far south; they were usually not needed here because Nilfgaard had long since discovered that armies equipped with silver weapons and shields were capable of destroying most monsters without specialist intervention. Witchers were sometimes called in by special request of army officers or Nilfgaardian lords, but even that had become increasingly rare over the last hundred years. 

The Witchers garnered stares wherever they went. In the inns, buying food in the marketplaces, on the roads. That was just life as usual for them. But the strange thing was that here, the tenor of the staring and questions changed. Where in the North, Witchers were understood to be monsters themselves and thus treated with fear and disgust, here they were mere curiosities. It wasn’t pleasant either, but it was an improvement to merely be stared at and asked intrusive questions rather than fearing thrown missiles or violent attacks. 

When they finally reached the royal palace in the City of Golden Towers, Yennefer was the one to greet them.

An overpowering thrill of some feeling Geralt couldn't name went through him at the sight of her. She was resplendent in black silk embroidered with white flowers and swallows, wearing diamonds and jet at her ears and on her throat. She looked every inch the mother of an empress-to-be, every inch the Court Sorceress to the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, and every inch her very best self. She stood tall, and Geralt realized in that moment that for Yennefer, this was the culmination of many decades of labor and blood and grief. She had defended the North from Nilfgaard’s forces when it had been Emhyr’s father invading. She had witnessed the deaths of nearly all of her peers in the combat. She had then seen her sisters of the Lodge of Sorceresses persecuted nearly into extinction. And then she had watched the North fall to Nilfgaard anyway. She had survived all this and had at last been forced to answer the Emperor of Nilfgaard’s call to his service. But she had gone not for Emhyr's sake but for the sake of their shared daughter, and Emhyr had not welcomed her willingly but as an ally of desperation.

Yet it seemed that he had finally accepted with grace that Ciri would need a court mage whom she trusted and even loved. There could of course be none other than Yennefer. 

She embraced Geralt and he let himself be swept up into the familiarity of her skin-smell and perfume. Strange, he thought, that he still loved her so much even without the desperate pull inside him that had bound them together for so many years. Now it was the love of respect, and gratitude that their daughter would have someone trustworthy at her side for all the years she would live. Yennefer had done anything and _everything_ in her power to find and help Ciri. Yennefer would continue to do so until the day Ciri died. 

Something settled into peace inside Geralt at that. He knew that he had no place in court, not even for Ciri. But _Yennefer_ did. This was where Yennefer excelled. She was a master of political scheming and court etiquette in a way Geralt could never be. And if Yennefer was here, then Geralt could instead play a different role in their daughter’s life: he and Eskel and Corvo Bianco could be a place to which Ciri escaped when it all became too much. Kaer Morhen was no longer the home of the Witchers of the School of the Wolf, but Geralt could still give Ciri a Witcher’s home to come to. 

All of this went through Geralt’s mind in a flash. By the time Yennefer pulled away from the embrace, he was ready to smile at her and compliment her dress and inquire after Corinne Tilly. As Yennefer showed the two Witchers to their chambers where they would stay for the duration of their visit, she told Geralt that she and Corinne (and Sarah, the godling who had adopted Corinne) saw each other regularly via portal. 

Geralt spent the rest of the day with Yennefer until Ciri was released from Emhyr’s company. Emhyr was, apparently, training Ciri in all the things she would need to know as Empress. She had the benefit of having been raised in Calathe's court until the age of ten, but she had subsequently spent her life learning to become a Witcher. Making up for nearly a decade and a half of lost knowledge required a great deal of time and effort. 

That Ciri was spending so much time with Emhyr made Geralt uneasy, but she ran to greet him the same as ever even despite her resplendent clothing. She wrapped her arms around Geralt's neck and let him hold her.

When she pulled away, he saw that she was well-fed and healthy--which was exactly what she said to Geralt, too. Even Ciri’s scars had been cared for, the terrible one on her face further softened and lightened, probably now being seen to with the best unguents a soon-to-be Empress could receive. 

It turned out that Morvran was, thankfully, nothing but respectful to his intended wife and fellow ruler. Ciri went riding with him at least once a week, and Geralt took it as a good sign that she willingly spent time in Morvran’s company. Geralt nonetheless told Ciri that if she ever decided to murder her own husband, that she could depend upon Geralt to help her hide the body. She laughed and thanked him. 

A few days before the wedding, Ciri’s armor arrived. She opened the chest it came in and stared in delighted astonishment as she drew out the beautiful silver, steel, and black leather. On the chestplate shone an engraving not of the Nilfgaardian sun or the arms of the house of Emreis but of the Swallow that had been Ciri’s nickname among the elves. Further, Yoana had used the same style for Ciri’s armor as she had for Geralt’s--a fact which Emhyr doubtless would not appreciate, but which Ciri clearly did. 

At the bottom of the same chest, however, lay a smaller box. Ciri opened it, stared at the contents first with a look of confusion and then one of shock, and then slammed it shut and glared wild-eyed at Geralt as her cheeks went bright red. 

“Did _ you _ order this for me?” she demanded, and Geralt couldn’t tell if her tone was furious or delighted. 

“I don’t even know what it is, so probably not,” he replied. 

For several long moments Ciri stood, clutching the box to her chest, before she handed it over to him. She didn’t meet his eyes. 

In the box, couched handsomely on red velvet, lay a generously-sized and quite anatomically accurate metal phallus. It looked very similar to the one Yoana had used on Geralt himself. When Geralt shook the box, the toy let out a pretty jingling sound. Ciri hid her face in her hands.

“I think Yennefer is responsible for this,” Geralt said, laughing. “Or perhaps just the armorer herself. It makes a fitting wedding present, though, doesn’t it? After all, your fiancé _ does _ love to ride.”

For this Ciri punched Geralt in the shoulder hard enough to bruise. But she also took the box away to her chambers, so Geralt considered both of them well-served. 

The night of the wedding-eve was a massive party. Which meant Geralt was grumpy about being yet again forced into brocade and silk. The only mercy in this was that Dandelion and Priscilla arrived just before the event.

Perhaps Dandelion noticed Geralt's foul mood and wished to distract him, or maybe Dandelion was just looking for inspiration for his next ballad or book of poems. Either way, he and Priscilla took both Geralt and Eskel aside into a cushioned alcove, away from the rest of the gathering, and inquired all about their adventures since the Battle of Kaer Morhen.

But when Eskel stepped out to get more food, Dandelion offered to bed Geralt, this time with Priscilla present and involved. Geralt first opened his mouth to say yes of course--and then closed his mouth again and actually thought it over. 

For almost two decades Dandelion had been Geralt’s most constant companion. Two Witchers could not often find enough work together to travel side by side, but a Witcher and a bard could, and could even help support each other through lean times. Dandelion had been so young when he’d seduced Geralt, and Geralt had been so lonely. So he had tolerated the way Dandelion had lied to others and made promises he couldn’t possibly keep, because it had made Geralt feel special that Dandelion had taken such pains to maintain his relationship with Geralt in a way he did with almost no one else. 

But while Geralt didn’t look much older now than he had when he’d first met Dandelion, Dandelion did. He was still handsome and energetic but he was aging, slowing down, and both Geralt _and_ Dandelion had finally settled into relationships with partners who would _stay_ by their sides in their lives going forward. If fate treated either Dandelion or Geralt better from now on, neither of them would ever need one another in the same way again. So if Geralt slept with Dandelion now, it would be almost as a way of saying farewell to that time in his life. 

Geralt realized then that while he might miss Dandelion’s company both in and out of bed, he _ wouldn’t _ miss what it was like being in a relationship with him.

Things between Geralt and Eskel were now secure enough that Eskel would almost certainly allow Geralt to have whatever dalliance he wished with whatever number of bards he wished. And he knew that sleeping with Dandelion would be every bit as incredible as it ever was--better, maybe, if Dandelion was trying to show off for Priscilla. Yet Geralt now found that this wasn't _enough_ for him anymore.

But, Geralt thought, perhaps that didn’t mean that Dandelion’s skills had to go to waste.

“Normally I'd say yes, but I'm not on my own these days. I have to consider Eskel’s feelings as well. I know that you're amazing in bed,” Geralt said to Dandelion, who preened, “but Eskel has never had the pleasure. Would you want to show off with him?”

Priscilla laughed before Dandelion could say anything. "Do you even have to ask if he wants to show off? Of course the answer is yes. And having _two_ handsome Witchers in our bed rather than one is no kind of punishment."

Satisfied with this beginning, Geralt nodded at Priscilla. But this just meant Geralt had reached the part of this that might be a harder sell.

“You and I both know you’re a marvelous representative of your gender," he began. The crowd was too thick for Geralt to be able to see Eskel through it, but he looked in the direction Eskel had gone and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake by saying this. "Problem is, Eskel is not moved by women in the same way that I am.”

“Oh?” Priscilla said, expression curious and not yet offended.

“While Eskel enjoys the company of women, he feels no passion for them. He'll sleep with women only if men aren't on offer. So as lovely as you are, his interest in you will have to come from something other than your looks.”

Geralt worried Priscilla might be offended by this, or find this more disturbing as a concept than the simple fact of men sleeping with one another. But Priscilla merely looked intrigued. 

“So if I want him to feel engaged by sharing a bed with me, I would need to make him feel good in a way that is not merely sexual. Hmm! An intellectual and emotional seduction. That's an interesting challenge.”

Dandelion grinned, smoothing the points of his mustache. Probably he wanted to look his finest when he welcomed Eskel back. “It’s true that he’s roguishly handsome. And those shoulders and thighs,” Dandelion said appreciatively. 

But Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “It is most important to me that neither of you undertake this solely to get at me. I would rather just halt this here than for that to occur. If you find Eskel intriguing but would not have made an attempt without my permission, then that is excellent. Perhaps even if you wish to see this as a test of your skills as lovers. But both Eskel and I are tired of him being treated as less worthy.”

Dandelion and Priscilla shared a long look before leaning close to murmur into one another’s ears. Then they both smiled and shared a kiss. 

When Eskel returned with two laden plates, Geralt watched in fascination as both bards turned their full skills and attention on him. Seeing this happen from the outside was like watching a master artist draw--Geralt was aware that he was witnessing true craftsmanship. 

He also realized exactly why he had fallen into bed with Dandelion. Dandelion had been good even at the age Geralt had met him, good enough that Geralt hadn’t had any real chance at resisting. And _ now, _with all the years of experience Dandelion had under his belt...

By the end of the evening, the two bards had gotten Eskel to disclose things even Geralt hadn’t known about him, Eskel was hanging off Priscilla's words, and he grew visibly flustered every time Dandelion touched him.

To Geralt's surprise, Priscilla and Dandelion let Geralt and Eskel return to their quarters alone. Eskel shut the door and leaned on it. 

“Were they--were they trying to seduce me? Was I imagining that?”

Geralt laughed, kissing Eskel on the mouth. “You definitely were _ not _ imagining it. Will you let them?”

The look Eskel gave Geralt at this was all confusion and concern. So Geralt kissed him again. 

“I will not be jealous like I was with Dettlaff. I'm not worried that they'll steal you away.”

Eskel shook his head, wrapping his arms around Geralt’s waist and leaning his face on Geralt’s shoulder. 

“Fucking hell, maybe you _should_ be worried. I don’t think anyone’s _ ever _ talked to me that way. No wonder you fell for all that.”

Geralt only laughed. 

The wedding and coronation both went off in spectacular fashion. The splendor and excess of it bored and disgusted the Witchers, and doubtless Ciri herself as well, but it couldn’t be avoided. If nothing else, seeing the pair of bards perform together after the ceremony warmed Geralt’s heart. 

That night, Dandelion and Priscilla continued their pursuit of Eskel--and Eskel let himself be pursued, clearly dizzy from all the attention. When it resulted in all four of them returning to Dandelion’s rooms together, Geralt was very pleased. 

Watching Dandelion fuck Eskel was an education. Eskel did not often take the receptive role with Geralt, as between the two of them, both of them preferred things the other way around. Even on the occasions Eskel felt that desire with Geralt, Eskel still led the encounters and directed Geralt’s every move. But Geralt knew that Eskel sometimes did things differently with others if he felt comfortable enough. Eskel had described encounters like this sometimes during their winters at Kaer Morhen. 

So actually seeing Eskel with his legs spread, clutching at the pillows as Dandelion talked and fucked him through what Geralt could tell was a very fine series of climaxes indeed, while Priscilla lay at Eskel's side and touched him everywhere else--well. Geralt could be excused for finding it inspiring. When he finally buried his head between Priscilla’s legs, she got Geralt’s very best efforts. 

Geralt and Eskel stayed in the capital with the two bards for another week. Not only was Priscilla’s company every bit as delightful as Geralt had thought it might be, but watching Eskel get thoroughly pampered was its own reward. 

Finally Emhyr made it clear that he no longer considered the Witchers welcome. So with instructions to Ciri about the location of Corvo Bianco, in case she wished to visit, and some very fond goodbye kisses from Dandelion and Priscilla, who meant to stay and perform in Nilfgaard for a while longer, Geralt and Eskel turned their horses north toward home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I started writing this fic because I wanted to get Geralt magnificently laid a lot. Apparently that impulse has now spread out to include Eskel, too.
> 
> Also, in 'verses where Morvran and Ciri get married, Ciri should ABSOLUTELY peg him.


	66. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, here it is: the final chapter. I originally meant for this fic to be just a bunch of silly short vignettes about Geralt flirting and fucking his way across the continent (and Skellige), but more than 100k words later here we are with soft polyamorous domestic romance. XD Whoops. My only regret is that I didn't get to chapter 69.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some adorable young vampires and super-romantic waxplay! Not both at once, though.

Geralt and Eskel returned to Corvo Bianco to not only find the roof covered in ravens but the cellar still full of garkains. At least they hadn’t eaten Barnabas-Basil or Marlene. 

It turned out to be quite the opposite, in fact. As soon as the Witchers arrived Marlene set out plate after plate of cold foods. (They had sent word saying they would return this week, but since she hadn’t known quite when to expect them, she had only been able to prepare with pantry-stable items. But with Marlene, that just meant she had found as many foods servable cold as she possibly could.) As she laid out a veritable feast, she reported that she’d been feeding the garkains too, with blood she got from the local butcher. As a result the alpha had started purring at her every time she went into the wine cellar. 

During the meal, Barnabas-Basil delivered several notes from Damien de la Tour, who had become aware of new monster problems in the area and had requested their help. The Witchers looked them over, planning the rest of their week around both seeing their other lovers and completing the contracts.

After the meal, while they waited for Dettlaff and Regis to arrive (as they undoubtedly soon would), Geralt and Eskel went downstairs to see the garkains. 

“You’re embarrassing yourself, old boy,” Eskel said to the alpha, who woke from its daytime slumber to purr sleepily at him as he approached. “If you’re nice to _me_ that’s one thing. But if you start being nice to everybody you’re gonna lose respect. Only a short hop from where you are to becoming a beloved household pet. Don’t want that, do you?”

Eskel belied his stern words by scratching at the garkain’s neck. The alpha only purred harder and buried its face in Eskel’s armpit again. Geralt couldn't suppress his laughter. 

He was out in the herb garden some time later when Regis turned up. One moment Geralt was watering the rare plants that were well on their way to ensuring Corvo Bianco's potions cabinet would always be well-stocked, and then there was a figure crunching along a path that had been empty just before. Geralt set down the watering can, dusted off his hands, and went to greet Regis. 

The way Regis smiled at him made Geralt even more keenly aware of the months they had just spent apart. When Regis was close enough, Geralt took the smaller man’s face in his hands, just looking at him for a moment. Geralt was delighted all over again by the blackness of Regis's eyes and the almost fur-soft way Regis’s facial hair felt.

The kiss they finally shared was soft and slow, Regis's herbal scent almost masked by the smell of the garden. When one kiss turned into two something in Geralt relaxed that he hadn't even realized was tense.

Regis was still alive and whole. Eskel was still at Geralt’s side. Corvo Bianco and everything good about Toussaint had truly waited for them to return. 

“Strange,” Regis said when they parted, seemingly to himself. 

Geralt raised his eyebrows in silent question. 

“It is strange that one’s impression of time changes so much depending on the situation,” Regis explained. “As you know, I once spent fifty years buried underground with nothing but my own thoughts to entertain me. I cannot even begin to describe how the time dragged during that experience. So I know better than almost anyone else alive what a long, empty stretch of time feels like. During the last however many weeks since you departed, meanwhile, I have been very busy, with a great deal to occupy me. Yet I find it still seems like a long time since you went away.”

At this Geralt chuckled. “The most long-winded way of saying you missed me.” He kissed Regis again. “I missed you too.” 

Regis pulled away then, seating himself on one of the benches nearby. He regarded Geralt with a thoughtful expression. 

“I do not wish to sound condescending, but...”

Rolling his eyes, Geralt seated himself at Regis’s side. Their thighs pressed together. “But you will anyway, right?”

“Oh hush. It is only that, well...I have let myself become so very attached to you. In the scope of things, even if you total all the time you and I have spent together, it amounts to so little. And yet, I regretted spending even two full moons without your presence. At my age, it's embarrassing to feel so fretful.”

“All of that was flattering, not condescending,” Geralt said, perplexed but still amused. "And this is _fast_ to you?"

Regis snorted. “You did not let me finish speaking. I meant to say that it worries me. Mortal lives are so short. I don’t know what I will do when you...when you truly depart.”

At this Geralt sobered. He recalled what Regis had said just after his ordeal in Tesham Mutna: _ Every moment I spend with you, I feel your impending departure. _ Slowly, in case Regis did not want this, he took Regis’s hand, lacing their fingers together. At the intimate touch a barely-perceptible tremor went through Regis.

“I know my life must seem very short to you,” Geralt said slowly. “But Vesemir--the Witcher who raised me--lived to more than three hundred years old. Probably he’d have kept on for a long time beyond that had he not been killed. I’ve not even completed my first century yet. If I’m anything like Vesemir, we’ll have a long time together.”

Regis let out a little sigh, his most human affectation. “That is true. Well, then, let us hope that you take after Vesemir, hm?”

Geralt nodded. He had the sense that this was a conversation he might have to have many times. Regis was neither forgetful nor irrational, but an immortal who allowed himself to fall in love with a mortal could be forgiven for needing reassurance. 

“I assume Dettlaff is wherever Eskel is right now,” Geralt said after a pause, thinking of the _other_ vampire he knew who was in love with a mortal. 

Regis nodded. “It’s done him good to bring the rest of his pack here. At least, those who would come,” Regis said. “But even with me at his side, he’s been unhappy away from Eskel. He has all the same concerns I do, and beyond that, I think the relationship is too new for him to feel sure of it yet. Especially after everything with Syanna.”

Placing one (admittedly rather provocative) kiss on Regis’s clothed knuckles, Geralt rose, moving back in among the herbs.

“Tell me what you two have been up to while I finish the gardening?” He knew that Regis would probably like nothing better than to talk at length about the previous months. 

Geralt was right. Regis expounded about all of it at great length. Dettlaff had negotiated with the rest of his pack, who were glad to have him back but displeased with the prospect of moving. Some had elected to remain in Nazair and look after Dettlaff’s estate there. Then those who wished to come to Toussaint had taken some of Dettlaff’s gathered wealth (gold, silver, gems, and coinage of various countries and eras, gleaned from ruins and crypts and bandits alike) and brought it and the rest of the pack to Toussaint. There, Dettlaff had bought the estate previously inhabited by the katakan slain by Geralt and Eskel. As the house had already been furnished for a vampire it contained much which the pack found useful. Dettlaff was already planning to build more houses on the land. 

All the while Geralt basked in Regis’s company like a cat in the sunlight. He continued basking for the rest of the evening, though dinner with all four of them together, and all the way to the point of saying goodbye to Regis and Dettlaff at nightfall. 

“Please come visit us tomorrow,” Dettlaff asked at the door, still gazing at Eskel as he had all evening. Geralt found it more tolerable now than he had before. “I want you to meet the pups, and everyone else who has come from Nazair.”

The next afternoon, Geralt and Eskel did just that. 

There turned out to be three katakan pups of different ages. Two of them could be no older than a year, little puffballs whose baby fur hadn't yet fallen out and whose sharp teeth gleamed as they chittered and shrieked at Eskel. They ran up to him, clutching at his boots and staring at him with their wide-set black eyes, ears lifted up and forward and clearly trained on him and his heartbeat. 

“They can tell you’re my mate. They’re waiting for you to nurse them,” Dettlaff sighed, picking up both pups and cradling them against his chest. 

Eskel had started to reach out to touch them but he stopped halfway, withdrawing his hands. “_Nurse_ them?” he asked incredulously. 

“Vampire children are usually just released into the wild to fend for themselves within a few months of birth,” Regis hastened to explain. “But some vampires choose to raise their young in order to teach them skills like language and rules of human interaction." Regis nodded at Dettlaff's armful. "These two were born to a katakan who had no wish to raise young, so we took them in. They have never been on their own before. Dettlaff even nurses them sometimes on his own blood. Rather as he did for me, in fact. It will make them much, much stronger once they’re older.”

The little pups stretched their tiny arms out to Eskel, crying now that they realized they weren’t immediately being given what they wanted. 

“I’ve rather spoiled them,” Dettlaff admitted, even as he bared his fangs at one of them when it tried to get at his neck. It subsided quickly. “But I can’t blame them. You smell so very good.”

At this Eskel looked uncomfortable. But the pups soon settled down, soothed by the simple fact of Dettlaff’s presence. They subsided into little chirruping lumps against his chest. 

The third pup was much older, an awkward teenager with scrawny limbs and massive ears he hadn’t yet grown into. Regis told them the young one’s name was Kaelag. He had a dramatic scar across his face which had taken out one of his big front fangs--and Geralt’s heart panged a little at the sight of him, reminded somehow of Eskel despite the obvious differences in shape and species. Geralt could only hope that Kaelag hadn’t gotten the scar from a Witcher. 

Aside from the scar, the pup looked very well cared for, though, his fur glossy and thick and the wide span of his ears glittering with a variety of jewels and gold. But he either hadn’t learned human language yet or was too shy to speak it, because he hovered around the edges of the gathering, saying nothing to anyone after Regis introduced him. Kaelag's dark eyes skipped back and forth between the two Witchers and he shied away when either of them moved closer. 

After that, Geralt and Eskel met an array of vampires who displayed varying levels of distrust at having two Witchers in their midst. But by the end of the evening, Kaelag, at least, had sidled slowly closer to Eskel, where he then seemed content to sit silently a few feet away from Eskel's side.

When Geralt and Eskel made signs of leaving, however, the young katakan finally acted. He took Eskel’s hand in his own much smaller clawed ones--and Eskel jolted, staring wide-eyed at the vampire. Geralt watched as Eskel’s pupils dilated and he stood still and silent with Kaelag for more than a minute.

“Ah,” Regis said when he saw this, and laid a hand on Geralt’s shoulder when he started to move forward out of concern. “Kaelag is not verbal yet, and may not ever be. But if he touches someone he can speak into their mind. Let them have their conversation. If Eskel does not like it, he can simply withdraw his hand.”

With some reluctance, both fascinated and worried by the idea of Eskel having his mind read by a young vampire, Geralt donned his boots by the front door and kissed Regis goodbye. By the time Geralt was out in the stables saddling both Skorpion and Roach, Eskel finally joined him again. 

“How was it?” Geralt asked, buckling the flank cinch on Roach. 

“He’s--” Eskel started to say and then trailed off. They mounted before he seemed to find words, sighing as they guided their horses onto the road. “He’s scared of this new place. It’s overwhelming for him. New smells, new people, new everything. But he loves Dettlaff, so he’s trying his best to cope. I didn’t...” 

Eskel trailed off again. Geralt waited him out. 

Finally Eskel shook his head. “Even having decided to be with Dettlaff, even seeing how he thinks and understands the world, it still...I still didn’t expect what it was like to _ feel _ it. The gathering tonight was so noisy that Kaelag spent the whole time wanting to go away, but for more than a month now he’s felt through Dettlaff how much Dettlaff loves me and how wonderful he thinks I am. So Kaelag...made himself stay. Because he wanted to meet me for himself as soon as he could.”

From the tightness of Eskel’s voice, Geralt could tell how moved Eskel was by whatever Kaelag had communicated.

Geralt recalled the times when Yennefer had read his mind _with_ his consent. The intimacy of knowing that she could see and feel all of him had been overwhelming. Geralt wasn't sure if the telepathy some katakans had was the same, having only read brief lines about it in the Witcher texts about vampires. 

“Must’ve been a lot,” Geralt said, not exactly asking for more information but opening the space to share it if Eskel wanted to. 

“Yeah,” Eskel said slowly. “It was. I could _feel_ how much Dettlaff loves me. Even filtered through someone else, it was...”

He trailed off and said nothing else. 

That night the fear resurfaced in Geralt. He wondered if _this_ time Eskel would leave. _This_ time he might realize how much better Dettlaff was, how much more expressive and emotional and not...not...

...not a Witcher. 

Geralt shifted in bed as he realized that was what lay beneath the jealousy and fear. It was exactly what he had felt when Yen had allowed herself to be courted again by Istredd, before they had both agreed that Yennefer would no longer sleep with other men if Geralt would agree not to sleep with other women. Yennefer had been furious with Geralt every time he had tried to find some way to express to her that she would be better off with _ anyone _ who wasn’t a Witcher, a mutant, with blunted emotions and the expressional range of a wall. It had sent her into a fury and she’d demanded he stop speaking that way and never say the word ‘mutant’ again. 

The idea had always upset Dandelion too, but their connection had been different. They had been two _ men _ on the road and Dandelion was always, always on the hunt for other lovers. Yet Dandelion had explained once that he didn’t think Geralt’s emotions were actually limited, and that while his body language might be opaque to strangers, to someone who knew Geralt well, he was ‘as clearly legible as fine script.’ Geralt hadn’t known what to make of that. He still didn’t. 

But now, with Eskel...if _Yennefer_ had never rejected Geralt for being a Witcher, and _Dandelion_ had not, and if a creature as feeling as _Regis_ would not...some part of Geralt suddenly rebelled against the idea that _another _ _ Witcher _ would reject Geralt for being what he was. Eskel had complained about the fact that Geralt had failed to _say_ loving words or _act_ in ways that made his regard clear. But those were problems that were shared by many men who had not been altered by the Trial of the Grasses, and problems which Geralt was working to fix. So surely Eskel of _all_ people (whom even other Witchers viewed as stone-faced yet whom Geralt found ‘legible,’ as Dandelion had put it) could not blame Geralt for being a Witcher and thus limited in certain ways? 

The anxiety did not vanish after that. Yet Geralt fell back to sleep quickly for once.

The next week, Eskel rode out to visit Dettlaff and his family every single day.

But Eskel did not leave. Instead, he went with Geralt to take care of contracts, killing giant centipedes, archespores, slyzards, and every other manner of monster that Toussaint could supply. The two Witchers brewed potions together, treated each other’s wounds, and suffered through the worrying of the vampires over their fragile mortal lives. 

Finally, another month later, Eskel returned to Corvo Bianco with a small package. He laid it on the table without saying anything throughout dinner. Once they'd finished, he pushed it over to Geralt. 

“Open it,” Eskel directed. His face gave no clue as to what it might be.

With interest, Geralt opened the little box. 

In it lay a set of sticks of sealing wax in fine, bright white. Beside the wax, sitting in its own little compartment, was a signet ring. Now even more puzzled, Geralt lifted the ring to see what its crest was. 

The impression was of two wolves’ heads with a raven between them. For a split second Geralt wondered whose emblem this was, and then he realized. The white wax, the shapes in the ring: Eskel had commissioned a seal for the Wolves of the _ White Raven _ estate, Corvo Bianco. Perhaps even just for the so-called White Wolf himself. 

“Clever design,” Geralt said carefully, knowing this was important somehow but confused about why. While it was true that he needed to write to Ciri and Yennefer and Dandelion more often, and that sealing the letters with a crest would make his letters prettier to look at, he had no idea why Eskel would go so far out of his way just for that. “But we don't really need--”

Eskel took the ring from Geralt and set it aside. Then he picked up one of the wax sticks. 

“Hold out your hand, Wolf.”

Curious and willing, Geralt laid one hand out on the table, palm up. Eskel conjured a small flame from one thumb, holding it to the tip of the wax until it melted. The droplets pattered right onto Geralt’s bare palm. 

He suppressed his flinch. The pain was only very small, a minor scald and nothing more. He waited to see where Eskel was going with this. 

When Eskel had made a small pool of wax in Geralt’s palm, he lifted the ring and pressed its face into the soft wax-- 

_ \--Marking Geralt as belonging to Corvo Bianco. _ Just as they’d joked the morning of the full moon Geralt had spent with Regis. Eskel had found a way to do it that was safe. 

Geralt’s wide-eyed gaze snapped up from his hand to Eskel’s face. Eskel looked back at him, expressionless as Witchers often were even when they were afraid. 

“Mine now,” Eskel said, the words soft. “You belong here with me. Gonna let me keep you?”

Shocked and overwhelmed, Geralt could only nod. When Eskel leaned forward to kiss him Geralt couldn’t hold in his groan. 

“Do it again,” he whispered into Eskel’s mouth. “On my face this time. Like you said.”

So Eskel stood, making another little flame with one fingertip, and tilted Geralt’s chin up and to the side. When the hot wax fell on the thin, delicate skin beside Geralt’s eye, dripping down his cheekbone like the tears neither of them could shed, Geralt couldn’t help the way he gasped.

Another quick press of the signet ring and it was done. 

“Mine,” Eskel repeated, slipping the signet ring onto his own finger before tenderly cupping Geralt’s face. 

“Yours,” Geralt replied in return. 

The wax would come off in a few moments if Geralt so much as moved. The pink marks left by the heat would heal to nothing within hours. But now, after everything they'd been through, Geralt hoped they might both start to truly believe that what they'd built together would last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the idea of adorable katakan pups goes to velvettodraws, whose delightful Witcher fanart (a great deal of which is of baby vampires) can be found [HERE](https://velvettodraws.tumblr.com/tagged/witcher). Do yourself a favor and go look. 
> 
> And as for me, I DID IT!!!! I finally reached the end!!!! I've written some other bits and pieces in this 'verse I'll probably start posting soonish, things that aren't from Geralt's POV or didn't fit in the main narrative. If you want to read those, make sure to subscribe to the series! 
> 
> Thanks for reading this massive fic of mine. Please leave me a comment if you enjoyed!


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